


Everlasting Change

by reisa223



Series: Gokusen: Kana's Journey [1]
Category: Gokusen - All Media Types
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-21
Updated: 2015-01-24
Packaged: 2018-02-22 02:24:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 16
Words: 54,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2491001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reisa223/pseuds/reisa223
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They told me that Shirokin was starting a new co-ed program. I had nowhere else to go, so I jumped at the chance. Little did I know that I would be the only girl and that I would meet people who would change my life forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Meeting 3-D

I stared down at the large group of eager guys looking up at me.

"You just have to graduate. You just have to graduate," I mumbled to myself as I stood up on the auditorium stage. My hands were clenched into fists against the sides of my skirt, which served to both steel my nerves but also keep prying eyes from looking underneath.

"I'm Nakajima Kana," I said with a bow. "Please take care of me."

The auditorium was suddenly full of applause and excited chatter. It would have been better had there been other girls in the crowd but currently, the ratio was about 200 male students to…well, me.

The principal, the short, nearly bald older man who had decided for whatever reason to accept me into his school, cleared his throat to get their attention.

"Nakajima-san will be in Class 3-D."

For a moment, the auditorium fell eerily silent and I almost stepped back in alarm. Then almost immediately after, the silence was broken by disappointed groans and shouts of protest. Their reaction was not very different than the teachers' reactions when I had requested to be in Class 3-D

"Quiet!" the Vice-Principal, Sawatari, roared. His beaky eyes glared at the students behind oversized glasses. "She doesn't know what Class 3-D is like. More than likely, she will end up changing classes." He smiled at me, flashing me a toothy grin. It was rather creepy and I involuntarily shuddered.

But really, what was so wrong with this Class 3-D?

Suddenly, a bunch of rowdy boys burst into the auditorium. When they saw me on the stage, they began to whistle and catcall. I took in their appearance with interest. Their uniforms were disheveled compared to the rest of the students, and as if to match the state of their uniforms, they did not seem to care for the proper lines that the other classes stood in and rushed toward the front of the stage in a disorderly fashion.

"Ah...speaking of the devils. Class 3-D, you're late as usual," Sawatari muttered with a glare.

"Nakajima-san is your new classmate. Treat her well," the principal said to the group. They stared back at him.

"CLASSMATE?!"

Apparently, many of the teachers had doubts about this as they exchanged uncertain glances with each other, and then nodded. And me? I just wanted to get off the stage already. I glanced at the guys in 3-D as they stared at me, grins slowly spreading on their faces. They completely ignored the glares that the guys from the other classes gave them. This was going to be interesting.

"What's your name?"  
"Why are you at this school?"  
"Do you have a boyfriend?"

I rolled my eyes as I was bombarded with questions.

"I'm Nakajima Kana. I got expelled from an all girls' school a little while ago, and supposedly I'm the only girl that showed up for the co-ed transition program at this school. My relationship status is none of your business," I answered.

Sawatari glanced at me. "It's hard to believe that someone like you got expelled," he remarked.

I didn't blame him for not believing the records, considering how hard I was trying to impress the teachers here. I was wearing the school uniform from my previous school, white collared shirt with a navy blue blazer and mini-skirt and white knee high socks, and I was actually wearing them properly. I looked, as much as I wanted to gag, like a perfect school girl.

But I had to impress them, at least for now. I had to graduate. Getting expelled again would mean I never would and I had to keep my promise.

* * *

Sawatari led me to my homeroom class, 3-D. I had chosen to join this particular class only because it was the number of the homeroom class I was in previously. I could already tell that I was going to like it here. One, because it was in the corner of the school, and two, because everyone seemed to think I wouldn't fit in here. Well, we would see about that.

When we walked in, there was an empty seat smack in the center of the room and all the boys were fighting for a seat next to mine.

"Where's the teacher?!" Sawatari shouted. He then turned to me. "Here's the uniform for our school. Tell me any time if you don't like this class. I'll switch you out immediately. Now I have to go find the homeroom teacher. Wait here."

He walked out, searching for a certain Yamaguchi Kumiko. It was such an old-school name. She was probably old...and mean.

I glanced at the guys, who grinned back at me.

"Where's the girls' bathroom?" I asked the guys.

They looked at each other confusedly. "There...is none?"

Oh right. Up until now, this was an all boys' school.

"Oh! But I heard they made a new one on the second floor next to ours!" one guy said. His pinned back longish blond hair certainly made an impression. "I'm Uchiyama Haruhiko but you can call me Uchi. I can take you there!"

Immediately, several other guys challenged him to be the one to take me to the bathroom and I could sense that a fight was about to break out.

_Seriously?_

I rolled my eyes and said, "Uchi, please take me to the bathroom now."

He gave the others a triumphant smirk and led me up the stairs at the back of the classroom.

We walked down the hallway before we came to a stop in front of a door.

"This is the new girls' bathroom. The one down the hallways is the guys, so don't get them mixed up!" he said with a cheeky grin. I glanced at the door down the hall. It was completely covered with crude graffiti. The girls' bathroom door was yet to be touched and I could even faintly smell the new paint.

"I think I'll be okay, thanks," I said before pushing open the door and walking in.

Once inside, I let out a sigh. It wasn't like I needed other girls here. In fact, it was a breath of fresh air from the hell that had been the all girls' school. But I knew my peers were expecting a cute, flirty but wide-eyed and innocent schoolgirl who would need a strong man to protect her. And they would fight over that position every day. I was a little tempted to play with that and be pampered, but I realized that this behavior was what I hated the most about some of the girls that had been in my previous class. By batting their eyelashes and acting dumb and cute, they managed to get guys from other schools to do whatever they wanted.

I was here for one reason and one reason only –  **to graduate**. I wanted to do it without creating any unnecessary drama.

I changed quickly out of my old uniform and stuffed it in my schoolbag. Sawatari had given me a black skirt to match the guys' school uniform, which consisted of a white button down shirt, black pants, and a black blazer, but I had come prepared. I slipped on a pair of black leggings under the skirt. After smoothing down the skirt, I stepped out of the stall to check my appearance in the mirror. I decided to pin back my bangs but couldn't decide what to do with the rest of my long black hair so I left it. I looked devoid of all color, which meant I would fit in perfectly here.  _Maybe I should dye my hair too_ , I thought with a smirk before leaving the bathroom, only to come face to face with the majority of my class.

"Awwww," was the collective disappointed response to my leggings.

"Perverts," I muttered and shoved past them.

* * *

When I returned to class, I saw that there was a desk in the back that no one had been sitting in earlier.

As I reached for the chair, Uchi said, "You can't sit there."

I looked up at him in surprise as he and the rest of the class trickled back into the classroom.

"Sorry Kana-chan, but that seat's taken by a friend of ours," the orange-haired guy next to Uchi said. "But you can sit next to me!"

"Hey, then what about me?!" the short brown-haired guy with multiple ear piercings protested, before I could respond.

"You can just scoot over!" the orange-haired guy retorted, already moving my desk. "Here, Kana-chan. Sit down! I'm Minami Youichi. If anyone bothers you at all, you can tell me!" With that, he threw a look at everyone else in the class, who seemed to begrudgingly accept that this was now my new seat.

"Thanks," I said eventually, putting my stuff down in my new seat. "But one thing. Call me Kana-chan one more time and I'll kill you. It's Kana or Nakajima."

The class laughed nervously, as if not sure if I was joking or not. I certainly was not.

"Sorry for taking your seat," I said to the guy who had moved over for me.

He beamed at me. "It's okay! We're all still together and that's what matters!"

"We?" I asked.

"My group of friends. There's me, Minami, Uchi, that big guy Kuma behind me and Sawada Shin but he's not here yet. I'm Noda Takeshi by the way. Call me Noda!"

Ah. They seemed to be quite the power group in this class.

"So what happened to the other girls?" I asked them. At the time that I had applied, the principal assured me that there would be at least 10 other girls in my grade. When I actually showed up, however, the principal was straightforward about the fact that this was no longer the case and that he understood if I wanted to withdraw my enrollment because of this. At this point, I was desperate and probably crazy enough to stay.

"They dropped out one by one in the first week," Kuma said between mouthfuls of what I assumed to be custard bread. "I think I scared them."

I began to laugh. I could see why. Kuma, whose full name was Kumai Teruo, was huge and sported a blond buzz cut. But it couldn't have been just him. The majority of the guys had dyed hair, jewelry and overall disheveled and menacing appearances. Now I knew why the principal and vice-principal had seemed willing to do anything to make me stay. If I were to leave the school as well, it would mean that their co-ed transition program had completely failed.

"So…Kana…where were you last week?" Uchi asked me. "You missed the first week of school."

The rest of the class turned to look at me to hear my answer.

I took a breath and decided that I would drop the perfect schoolgirl act once and for all, at least in front of them. "I got into a fight and was at the hospital."

"Did someone attack you? Who was it?" Minami demanded. "I'll crush them for you!"

"…I started it," I answered slowly.

"Eh?!" the class gasped.

Before I could elaborate, the classroom door slammed open. In walked the most extraordinary teacher I would ever meet in my life.

But I didn't know that. Yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone, I'm Reisa. I posted this story at winglin a while back, but now that winglin is completely down, I thought I'd post it here. I've begun the slow process of re-editing and reuploading the story, so please be patient with me!
> 
> The story will follow the drama rather closely, with a few of my own original characters as you can probably tell and pretty much all of the original cast. Gokusen is one of my favorite dramas, so I hope you enjoy reading as much as I enjoyed writing this.
> 
> I apologize for the corny title. I wrote this back in middle school and my imagination was a little limited back then when it came to titles. However, I decided not to change it because my readers at winglin are familiar with this title and hopefully will be able to find my story here. I have added some changes to the original story I wrote, so I hope old fans and new readers will find some new perspectives to enjoy.
> 
> For those of you confused about the seating arrangement, I made a chart. Of course this only shows the desks of the main characters but there are other students sitting around them as well. I also doubt that the desks are as neatly arranged as they are on this chart ;)
> 
> [](http://imgur.com/KWIKru4)  
> 
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Please comment and tell me what you think. It's really helpful! Also, let me know how you got into Gokusen in the first place!


	2. Boys' School Shenanigans

A young woman wearing a red sports jersey suit rushed into the room holding a bunch of papers. Her pigtails were messily done and her glasses were askew. So this was Yamaguchi Sensei…

"Rather nerdy looking," I muttered to myself. I hadn't expected her to be so young.

"Yeah, she's 23 but she already looks like that," Noda scoffed. "No sense of fashion whatsoever."

Huh. So she was one of those fresh-out-of-college, super perky teachers. Those teachers were worse than the old stubborn geezers who couldn't bother to teach anything anymore, because new teachers expected to be your best friend.

But what I noticed even more was the immediate shift in the atmosphere in the classroom. The guys had been fooling around and talking amongst themselves until she had walked in, but now they deliberately turned in their seats away from her and began to mess around, almost if on purpose to ignore her. There was an underlying tension that filled the air, almost bordering hatred. I looked around at my classmates, all of them seeming incredibly tense while trying to act as if they couldn't care less that she was in the room.

"Yamaguchi Sensei! You're late AND you have a new student!" Sawatari said sternly from the doorway.

"I'm sorry! I was tearing down all of these ridiculous flyers off of the…new student?" the teacher asked, interrupting herself.

Sawatari scanned the room for me, or rather for the "perfect school girl" I had been ten minutes ago.

"Wait, where is she? Did you fools scare her off already?!" he demanded.

I raised an arm lazily in the air. "I'm here, sir."

The class began to laugh at him. "She's right in front of your face!"

"Hmph. Well, take care of your class, Yamaguchi Sensei! And Nakajima-san, if you are unhappy in this classroom with this teacher, tell me immediately!" Sawatari said with an exaggerated glare and stormed off.

The teacher then turned to me and smiled. "I'm Yamaguchi Sensei. Can you introduce yourself to us?"

I stood up and Noda gave me a thumbs-up with a grin.

"I'm Nakajima Kana. Don't call me Kana-chan…just Kana is fine. I've been expelled from two schools for violent behavior. Anyways, I chose Class 3-D because it was my class number at the last school I was at. I figure I belong here anyways, since you guys seem pretty cool. I can handle all of you," I said, throwing Minami a smirk.

The guys whooped and rose in applause, which was pretty stupid, because I hadn't said much. But I felt welcome. I sat down and waited for Yamaguchi to give me the "lecture" about the importance of school and not getting in trouble or to just stare at me in disbelief.

However, she simply smiled. "Let's hope you won't get expelled again," she said cheerfully. "If you have anything you want to talk about at all, come to me! We women have to stick together after all!"

I stared at her. Most teachers just gave me a look, as if they didn't want to deal with me. How could she laugh off my expulsions like they didn't mean anything? Most teachers assumed I would get kicked out anyways.

"Okay, so today, I found this on the school bulletin board," Yamaguchi began. She held up a flyer with her head photoshopped onto a women's body with enormous breasts – clearly not her own.

The guys in the class all smirked.

"And what's with this Yankumi?" she asked pointing to the letters next to the photo.

"It's your nickname, duh!" Minami pointed out.

"We shortened your name Yamaguchi Kumiko to Yankumi!" Kuma explained.

"…I see," she said, as if pondering over it. "It's cute! I guess I like it!"

"What?!" Minami said incredulously. "She likes it? That defeats the purpose!"

"Also, you guys should try your best not to get Vice Principal Sawatari angry," she continued. "He says that the next time something like this happens, he will hunt down the culprit and punish them accordingly."

"He always targets us like that," Minami grumbled. The rest of the class muttered their agreement. I could definitely see that happening. The creepy vice principal seemed incredibly uptight about maintaining a certain image for the school.

I turned my head when I heard someone coming down the back stairs. A guy with messy black hair walked in as if he owned the place. The class seemed to settle down and relax a bit when they saw him.

"Sawada, I told you not to be late," Yamaguchi scolded.

He ignored her and sat down in the empty seat that I had tried to take earlier. He glanced at me and asked, "Who are you?"

"This is Kana," Uchi jumped in. "She just came today."

"It's alright if she sits with us, right?" Minami said.

Sawada didn't even look at me. "Whatever," was all he said as he stared across the room, as if the topic bored him.

I raised a brow but didn't say anything. It was interesting to me that Minami had asked him if I could sit with them, as if asking for permission. What made Sawada so great in this classroom?

"That stupid vice principal pisses me off," Uchi said, kicking Noda's chair a little. Oh, back to this topic again.

"Shall we teach him a lesson?" Kuma said and the guys in his group nodded in agreement.

"So I guess I should start homeroom now!" Yamaguchi said, and then the bell rang. Everyone stood up and walked out of class. I only had a brief look at her dejected form before Uchi grabbed my school bag and dragged me out of the room with them.

* * *

At lunch, the guys took me to the parking lot where the teachers kept their cars.

I didn't even have to guess which one was the vice principal's car. Only he would drive a bright yellow Volkswagen beetle as obnoxious as he was.

"What are you going to do?" I asked.

"You don't have to do anything, Kana," Uchi said. "Just leave it to us."

Noda and Kuma came back with a bag full of spray paint, as if they had this all planned.

I sat on the short wall surrounding the parking lot as Sawada leaned against it.

"I'm Kana," I said to him as we watched the other guys "creatively" decorate the vice principal's car.

He looked at me and looked away. Okay then.

"What school did you come from?" he asked.

"Momojou," I responded unhappily.

"Momojou? You?" he asked with a smirk.

"That's why I left!" I retorted, knowing that he was comparing me to the proper schoolgirl image that Momojou girls portrayed.

"You mean you got expelled," he pointed out flatly.

"…Shut up," I said with a huff, coming down from the wall. Sawada's holier-than-thou attitude was so irritating. I preferred him to stay silent. I walked over to where the guys were pretty much done with their masterpiece.

"So why do you guys hate Sawatari so much?" I asked.

"He treats us like trash," Uchi said, angrily spraying his last finishing touches on the terrible drawing of Sawatari. "He always accuses us immediately, whether we did something wrong or not."

"That's why he stuck all of us in the same class," Noda explained to me. "He thinks we're the worst trouble makers."

"No wonder he was so upset I picked this class," I said with a grin.

"Pretty much," the guys responded.

Just as Kuma wrote his final message "Dropping out is fine!" in bright red, Minami came running, telling us that a teacher was headed this way. We looped around the back to get back to the classroom. There was no way we would get caught, right? And even so, there was no way that Sawatari would think that I had anything to do with it.

* * *

Sawatari discovered his wrecked car soon enough. Lunch was hardly over when he burst into our classroom, absolutely furious.

"WHO DID THIS?! WHO DID THIS TO MY CAR?!" he demanded, pounding his hands on the podium.

Sawada smirked as the others tried to hide their grins. The rest of the class wasn't even paying attention to Sawatari.

"YOU'RE THE HOMEROOM TEACHER. DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS!" Sawatari yelled at Yamaguchi.

"Do you have proof that they did it?" she asked innocently.

"YEAH!" Uchi shouted, standing on his desk. "Where's your PROOF?!" Everyone got riled up, echoing his demand.

"BECAUSE OF THAT!" Sawatari yelled, pointing to the paint traces on our classroom floor.

Uchi slid back into his chair as the class fell silent, defeated. I mentally facepalmed.

"Why couldn't you guys be a bit more discreet?" I heard Yamaguchi mutter quietly. I raised an eyebrow at her comment. A teacher was egging us on to graffiti on people's cars?

"Who did this?!" Sawatari demanded again.

"We don't know!" Kuma yelled, hitting his desk.

"Even if we did, we wouldn't rat out anyone," Uchi said.

"Wow, you guys really understand honor and sympathy," Yamaguchi said, impressed. Huh?

"Of course we do," Uchi said proudly. "We're all classmates here."

"Awww, you guys have a good side to you after all!" she said proudly.

"Why are you complimenting them?!" Sawatari demanded.

"It's good that you guys won't rat out your friends," Yamaguchi said, "but if you are the culprit, it's best for you to come forward yourself. It is destruction of property after all."

The class fell silent once more.

"Fine, have it your way," Sawatari said angrily. "All of you are not allowed to leave today unless the culprit comes forward himself. You guys will be held jointly responsible!"

The class erupted into protests. This definitely was not fair.

"Does that mean me too?" Yamaguchi asked.

"Of course. You're their homeroom teacher. Make sure no one leaves," he said as he headed for the door. "Oh and Nakajima-san. You're free to leave whenever you want. I'm sure you had nothing to do with it," he said to me with another one of his creepy smiles.

"…Well I guess it can't be helped, since you guys are all so loyal to your friends…" Yamaguchi began after he left.

Sawada stood up, kicking his desk. "Stop calling us friends so easily," he snapped and left the room.

"…What's with him?" I asked, not that I disagreed with him.

"…Maybe he doesn't think we're all friends yet," Noda said quietly. "It's only the second week of school, after all."

"Yeah, he was only close with Uchi and Kuma before this year, right?" Minami said. "Maybe that's why."

Or maybe because he knew that "friends" usually turned out to be the backstabbing liars, as I had experienced in the past.

Whatever it was, we dropped the subject, but the class refused to give any names so we remained stuck in class, even after the final bell rang. The guys asked me why I didn't leave even though I was allowed to. I told them it was because it was more fun here than at home, which was true, but I also didn't want them to think that I was taking advantage of Sawatari favoring me. I didn't want to give my classmates any reason to resent me, not if I was going to have to spend the rest of the year with them.

And I was determined to make it until the end of this school year.

Minami suddenly got a text and pumped his fist in the air triumphantly.

"I'm going to go meet Ayumi now," he said grabbing his bag and heading up the back stairs. Noda and Uchi cheered him on.

"Wait, where are you going?" Yamaguchi asked. "You can't leave!"

She came toward the back but Uchi, Kuma and Noda physically restrained her to let Minami go. I almost laughed at how comical this looked.

"Don't stop him," Noda said. "He has a date with his girl."

"A date?" Yamaguchi asked, sounding surprised.

"Yeah, he usually goes around picking up girls, but this time, it seems like he's pretty serious about this one girl," Uchi explained, still holding Yamaguchi back.

"Aww, that's so cute. You guys are such good friends," she beamed. Then she threw Uchi and Kuma's hands off in what seemed to be a martial arts group.

I looked around, seeing if anyone else had seen what I had. How did she do that? Uchi seemed to be clutching his chest in pain where her elbow had collided with his ribs. But no one else seemed to have seen, and I wondered if it was because Uchi and Kuma hadn't been putting their full strength into it.

"Alright, now that I've seen how loyal you guys can be, I'm going to let you all go for today," Yamaguchi announced.

"Really?" the class asked.

"If you help me fix the vice principal's car back to the way it was," she said. Of course there was a catch. "Everyone change into your sports jerseys and meet me at the parking lot!"

The class mumbled in response. I grinned. I could see where this was going.

No one ended up meeting her as planned. We all left, leaving Yamaguchi to wash the car. I had nothing to do with the graffiti, but I knew that I wasn't the only one who didn't want to wash it off.

* * *

After school, Kuma asked me if I wanted to hang out with them.

"For a little bit," I agreed.

"We'll show you the best places to have fun," Noda said, slinging an arm casually around my shoulder.

"Oi, you got first dibs on the last girl," Uchi pointed out.

"So?" Noda smirked. "Besides, she ended up leaving Shirokin!"

"So I get first dibs on Kana," Uchi said, shoving Noda's arm off to replace it with his own. Noda grabbed Uchi's collar and they glared at each other.

"Hey, I'm not an object to be fought over!" I said angrily. Uchi immediately removed his arm.

"Sorry," he and Noda muttered, and I glared at them.

"I suggest keeping your arms to yourself from now on," I said firmly. "But buy me ice cream and I might forgive you this time."

"Nice," Kuma said, smiling at the thought of food. "Yeah, buy me one too, while you're at it."

Uchiyama and Noda looked at each other and shrugged.

"Sure, for Kana."

"HEY!"

The guys ignored Kuma and began to walk toward the commercial area of town.

We hung out for hours. I don't know how time passed so quickly, but I found myself enjoying myself in the company of others for the first time in a long time. Sawada met up with us partway through. He mostly ignored me, but I was fine with that. Kuma ate for most of the time we were together. He was pretty nice though, despite his incredibly gruff exterior. And even though Noda acted flirty with me, he wouldn't stop talking about older women, especially Fujiyama, the English teacher. He also talked a lot about his beloved electronics, his PC and his headphones.

Uchi and I hit it off really well, as if we had always known each other. We got on each other's nerves a lot by teasing, but it wasn't bad.

"Uchi-chan, who did your hair?" I asked, reaching over to give his blond hair a touch.

"Don't call me Uchi-chan!" he growled. "And don't touch my hair!"

"Uchi-chan, Uchi-chan!" Noda chanted, hopping around Uchi with his hands in his pockets.

"Shut up!"

It was almost completely dark before I realized I should start heading back.

"I'm going to go home," I said, standing up from where I sat, watching them play pool.

"We'll go with you!" Uchi said.

I immediately put my hands up, as if physically stopping them from coming after me.

"No need," I insisted. "I can take care of myself. It's not that far anyway."

"If you say so…" Noda said, but I could hear him and Uchi conspiring to follow me.

As if sensing my distress, Sawada spoke up. "Guys, stop it. Just let her go."

"Fine," they grumbled. "See you tomorrow!"

I waved as I left.

* * *

"How was your first day?" Shun asked me when I got home.

"What, were you worried about me Shunnie?" I teased, putting my bag on the counter.

"I told you not to call me that, kid," he warned.

"Then don't call me kid," I whined. "Chiba~ Shunnie's bothering me!"

"Will you both grow up?" Chiba groaned from where he sat.

"I am older than you," Shun pointed out. "So, answer my question, Kana! What happened today?"

"Nothing much, except that I ended up being the only girl at an all boys' school."

Shun looked a little horrified while Chiba burst out laughing.

"So you're going to a school full of guys and coming home to a house full of guys!" Chiba gasped between laughs.

"It's fine, I can handle myself," I said, more to Shun than to Chiba.

Shun was quiet for a moment before he nodded. "I'm sure you can. Anyway, go do your homework, kid."

"I'll do it later," I said. "Make me a smoothie first."

"The princess is so demanding," Chiba joked. "What, did you not make any friends today? Or boyfriends?"

"I don't need friends or boyfriends," I snapped back. "I just need to graduate."

"You can't graduate unless you do your assignments. I'll bring you a smoothie later," Shun said.

"Ha, sucker," Chiba said, as I reluctantly headed to my room.

I didn't end up getting any work done that night anyway. People from the house kept dropping by to ask me how my day was.

"Shun's really proud of you for going back to school, you know," Sho, one of the guys in the house I considered myself somewhat close to, said to me. "He just won't admit it."

"I know," I said.

Shunsuke, or Shun as we all called him, was a huge part of why I was even going back to school. When I had hit rock bottom after being expelled for the first time with nothing left to live for, he gave me a place to call home. And he was the one that reminded me that I had made a promise to my parents to at least graduate from high school.

Pretty much everyone in this house, including Chiba and Sho, had a similar story. Shun had taken each of us and our violent backgrounds and instead of judging us for it, had given us a place to call our own, turning our lives around. Why Shun never ended up helping out other girls besides me was a mystery to me, but I had never asked. I was too grateful to what Shun had done for me and never questioned him since. The rest of the guys in the house also regarded Shun with a lot of respect, even though at twenty-eight, he wasn't that much older than some of them. Shun was one of the only people I trusted with my entire heart and it meant a lot to know that he was proud of me.

I eventually fell asleep, wondering if my parents would be proud of me too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For clarification  
> *Sawada's close friends call him Shin. Kana calls him Sawada because they're not close.  
> *"-chan" is a suffix added to names to refer to younger children or girls.  
> *Japanese high schools are only 3 years. So even though Class 3-D are third years, they're also seniors. This might be confusing for places where high schools are typically 4 years.
> 
> Thanks for reading and let me know if you have any questions/thoughts! (:


	3. First Fight

The next morning, when I arrived at school, a large group of guys not in my class seemed to be waiting for me.

"Good morning, Kana-chan," they chorused.

I clenched my fists.  _Kana-chan? Really?_

They all wanted to talk to me, especially one guy named Abe, but eventually a fight broke out amongst them as I tried to push past them. I called out to Sawada to help me but he ignored me and walked past.

I eventually got by when Iwamoto, the Physical Education teacher, saw the fight and came to break it up.

When I opened my shoe locker, a ton of letters and trinkets fell out.

"What the…" I muttered as I picked them. They were all addressed to me.

Handwritten letters… _what were they, schoolgirls?*_

I stuffed them all into a bag and threw them out when no one was looking. I didn't even know these people!

I ran into Uchi on the way to class.

"Yo," he said to me, then slung a casual arm across my shoulder. I gave him a look, but I didn't really care. I was just relieved that he was someone I knew. He noticed, and didn't remove his arm.

"Why are you so happy?" I asked. Something good must have happened.

"Maybe because I have a pretty girl on my arm and I look good," he said, grinning at me.

"So you're using me," I said, looking at him with a cold expression. He stepped back and his expression changed.

"No, Kana, I was just kidding," he said slowly, trying not to make me angry. I shrugged.

"Baka*," I said, laughing at him. He realized that I had been making fun of him, and shoved me lightly. I shoved him back before he replaced his arm on my shoulder.

When we got to class, I saw that Minami and Sawada were gone, but Kuma and Noda were there. I was still pissed that Sawada didn't help me out this morning, but what was I expected really. We weren't even friends.

As if on cue, Sawada slammed the classroom door open, and walked in. He immediately went to the back and grabbed his bag. I saw that he was sporting a fresh cut on his lip.

Before we could ask him anything, Yamaguchi ran into the classroom. "Sawada, you aren't thinking of leaving are you?" she demanded.

"I won't write a reflection essay*," Sawada retorted.

"You're okay with being expelled?" Yamaguchi asked him.

"Expelled?" Kuma gasped. What on earth had happened?

"It doesn't matter to me," Sawada replied coolly.

"Even if it doesn't matter to you, it does to me," Yankumi replied. "You guys would hate it if your friend got expelled, right?"

"Stop calling us friends so easily!" Sawada snapped.

"It's not easy or hard. Friends are friends."

"Let's get along with everyone because we're all friends, is it? We're not kids. Don't make me laugh," Sawada scoffed.

At that moment, Minami stumbled in. His face was swollen, with one black eye and a huge cut running down his cheek to his mouth.

"Minami," Uchi and I both said, staring at him.

But it was as if we didn't exist. Minami and Sawada glared at each other before Sawada picked up his stuff and left.

"Shin!" Kuma called after him.

"Leave him alone!" Minami scoffed. "Even if he gets expelled, he can always transfer to another school. He has the brains for it." And then instead of coming to the back to his usual seat, he began hanging out with the guys who sat in the front. The rest of the class took it as a cue to carry on as usual.

Later on, Noda, Kuma, Uchi and I confronted Minami at lunch.

"Yesterday, I got beat up by these Ara High School punks after you guys left. Then this morning, Shin told me to stop seeing my girl, so I socked him. We got in trouble for fighting," he explained to us.

"Then why is Shin being punished?" Uchi asked, confused.

"Because it looked like he did a lot of damage to me, and that I only defended myself."

I glared at him. "Some friend you are. Sawada didn't even touch you!"

"What was I supposed to do? Tell them I got in a fight with guys from another school? That would have gotten me expelled! Besides, he had no right to say that to me. Who does he think he is, telling me to stop seeing my girlfriend?"

We walked to class back to class in silence. I was angry at the way things were being unfairly carried out. In the class, Sawada was always the quiet one, but without him, it was quieter.

"So what's going to happen to Sawada?" I asked Uchi, Kuma, and Noda during class.

"It seems like they aren't going to let him go to class until he writes a reflection essay. They're giving him until the end of tomorrow. If he doesn't write it, he'll be expelled," Noda explained to me.

I stared at him. Sawada hadn't done anything wrong, but from what I knew about him and the way he acted earlier, I figured he wasn't going to write the essay.

"But why would he tell Minami to stop seeing his girlfriend?" Kuma wondered out loud. "He isn't the type to start fights without good reason." We couldn't come up with anything.

"Then why is Sawada even in this class?" I asked.

They all looked at each other before Kuma responded. "Shin transferred here the second semester of first year. A teacher had accused his friend of smoking and was trying to get him expelled. When the truth came out that it wasn't his friend who had been smoking, the teacher refused to apologize and instead told the friend that it was his fault for associating with trash. Shin was pissed and he started to beat up the teacher during class."

_So he does care about friends_ , I mused.

We all eventually went home, having doubts about whether Sawada would ever return to class 3-D.

* * *

The next day, I saw Kuma leading Sawada to the school conference room. Neither of them spoke to me, but I knew that it was Kuma's attempt to keep him from getting expelled. I didn't really understand their friendship, but I thought it was neat.

Later in the day, Minami came back to the classroom in a foul mood. When Uchi asked him what was wrong, he told us that his girlfriend Ayumi had just broken up with him because she was seeing someone else.

"And after she did, Watanabe, the leader of the Ara High School punks that beat me up, told me that Ayumi was actually his girl. The gang told me to meet them at the junkyard by the river after school. He said that if I was foolish enough to try to take his girl, that I would meet them." Minami said, packing up his things.

"You aren't going, are you?" Kuma asked him. Minami glared at him.

"Do you think I have a choice? Of course I'm going, and nobody can stop me."

Everyone tried to convince him not to leave, but he didn't listen and walked out the door.

"He's going to get beat to a pulp," they said, talking among themselves.

"Why isn't anybody going after him?" I asked. I figured that somebody would at least go.

"Do you even know who Watanabe is? You think we stand a chance? You heard him. No one is going to stop him. If we go, we're only going to get beat up like he is."

I stood up. "I'm going to the bathroom," I said. I was pissed. No one knew what it meant to have someone's back at this school.

In the bathroom, I paced back and forth. On one hand, it wasn't like I owed Minami anything. We were just classmates. And I was only here to get through school. I had promised Shun not to start any fights.

But on the other hand…if someone were to threaten me, I knew that I would want someone to stand up for me. That's what Shun and the others did for me. And Minami had no one. It didn't help that I knew this Watanabe, and he definitely deserved to get his ass kicked.

And I wasn't going to back down from a fight, even if Shun was pissed afterwards. I left the bathroom, took the back exit of the school and began to run.

* * *

When I reached the junkyard, the gang had already beaten Minami up, and as he lay sprawled on the ground, they walked over his beaten body. To my surprise, Sawada was there as well. He was fighting the gang to the best of his ability, telling them to keep their hands off of his friend. So he did care about Minami. The entire gang was now focused on Sawada, shoving him around and punching him. I angrily made my way over to them and the leader, Watanabe, spotted me.

"Kana," he said, "what are you doing here?" I just glared at him. Sawada glanced at me, clutching his stomach. I had taken off my blazer at school, so the Ara High guys didn't know I went to Shirokin.

"Back off of them," I demanded. "You've done enough."

"Why, these your friends?" Watanabe asked. I couldn't answer.  _Yes, no, maybe?_

"And if they are, what's it to you?" I said finally. He sneered.

"This guy dared to touch my girl," Watanabe said, indicating Minami. "And this one thinks he can take on all of us by himself. They're pathetic," he scoffed. He kicked them both.

"I said to back off!" I shouted, grabbing the leader by the collar, landing a direct punch to his face. All of the gang now turned to me. I stood, breathing heavily.

"You're going to regret that," Watanabe shouted at me, grabbing me by the collar. "You know, Kana, you've really dropped to a whole new low if you're associating with trash like this now."

"I don't want to be told by someone like you," I spat, trying to wrench free as Watanabe asked a guy to hand him a metal pole.

Suddenly, a large wave of water splashed onto the gang. Some of the water caught me, causing my bangs to become stuck to my face.

"What the hell?!" one of the guys shouted, and they all turned.

My eyes widened when I saw Yamaguchi standing there with a huge storage drum. How the hell was she holding that thing up?

"Who the hell are you?" Watanabe spat, pushing his wet hair back. He pushed me away to focus on her.

"Me? I'm their homeroom teacher."

"Yankumi?" Minami groaned from where he lay.

She threw the drum at the gang and began to walk towards us.

"She's a teacher?!" the gang began to laugh. "What the heck?"

"Sawada, Minami, Kana, go," she said. We stared at her. "Go quickly!"

I stumbled over to Minami, but he stopped me from helping him up. I watched Yamaguchi from where I crouched with him.

"Stop messing with us!" Watanabe shouted.

"Shut up!" she demanded. He stared at her. "I'm really pissed off right now!"

One of Watanabe's underlings strode to her. "Teachers shouldn't get involved," he growled, but she grabbed his wrist and twisted it, shoving him to the side. My eyes grew wide. How did she do that so easily?

Another attacked her, but all she had to do was dodge his punch before socking him in the stomach. He tried to grab a metal bar nearby but Yamaguchi stepped on it.

"If kid handles something like this, they'll get hurt," she warned. The whole time, she kept her eyes on Watanabe.

"Are you going to hit me?" he asked.

"If it's to protect my students, I'll do anything, understand?" she said harshly. She continued to walk towards them, and Watanabe kept stepping back before turning completely to run. His gang followed him.

When Yamaguchi turned her eyes on us, we looked away, expecting excessive scolding from her.

"This is what friendship is," she softly said, and I stared up at her.  _What?_

She tried to help Sawada up, but he shoved her hand away, standing up on his own. I pulled Minami to his feet and allowed him to lean on me for support.

"Let's get you guys cleaned up," Yamaguchi said and led us out of that area.

She tended to Sawada and Minami's wounds on a hill by the river.

"You knew, didn't you, that Minami's girlfriend was two-timing him?" Yamaguchi said to Sawada. It finally made sense…At his silence, she continued. "That's your reason for fighting with him, isn't it?"

"So what if it is?" he said.

"You have some good qualities," she smiled.

Suddenly, Noda, Uchi, and Kuma appeared, all padded up and holding janitorial items as weapons.

"You guys," she said.

"Are you stupid, Yankumi?" Uchi demanded.

"Did you really think you could win against them alone?" Noda added.

"You guys are late!" she shouted at them, but grinned.

"Shut up!" they chorused.

"Shin, don't you have to write the reflection essay?" Kuma said.

"That doesn't matter," he said.

"Idiot!" Minami coughed. "What if you get expelled?"

"I won't let that happen," Yamaguchi said. "Whatever happens, I'lll protect my students. After all, I am your teacher."

We stared at her. I didn't doubt the sincerity of her words, but because of my past experiences with teachers and adults in general, I couldn't help but remain skeptical. And I was dying to ask her why she knew how to fight as well as she did.

Sawada stared up at the sky.

"Come on, Sawada, quit being so stubborn. Your friends still need you. We want you to stay," I said, realizing that if it were with these guys, I wouldn't mind being friends.

He looked at me carefully, as if for the first time. I tried to look solemn.

"Friends?" he asked slowly.

"Friends," I said firmly.

He smiled briefly.

* * *

"Kana, what happened to your hand?"

I threw my school bag on the counter. "Nothing."

Shun grabbed my wrist. "Were you fighting again? You're going to get expelled if you keep doing this! I thought you promised me not to start any fights!"

"I know! It's just…today, I had a good reason. AND technically, I didn't start this one," I said defensively.

He raised his eyebrow as he treated the scraped skin. I began to tell him a little bit about Yamaguchi and the guys I had met.

"Sounds like just the teacher you need," he remarked, as I winced from the alcohol stinging my hand.

"Maybe."

But teachers had failed me in the past, so even though Yamaguchi was interesting, I was going to hold off on trusting her.

* * *

The next morning, I arrived at school to another crowd of guys waiting for me, including Abe. This was the third day in a row and I was getting fed up with this.

"Look I'm not interested in any of you, so stop waiting for me!" I shouted, frustrated.

"Come on, Kana. Just one date!" Abe said, as they all crowded around me, blocking my way.

"Is this how you guys managed to scare off all of the girls who enrolled here?" I asked, pushing against them. "Let go of me!"

"Hey," a voice said behind me. The crowd suddenly fell away and I turned to see Sawada standing there.

"Hey," I said, not sure what else to say. Was he here to help me?

"Come on, we're going to be late," he said, walking in ahead of me. The crowd seemed to part like a wave for him. I didn't know what to do and remained standing there. Sawada turned around. "Are you coming or not?" With that, he seemed to give all of the guys a pointed look, which seemed to instantly deflate their ego. Even Abe took a step back from me.

"Coming," I said finally and quickly caught up with Sawada. "Thanks," I said quietly.

"What happened to being able to handle all of us guys?" he said.

"…Shut up," I said. "…wait, you weren't even in class yet when I said that!"

He just smirked and kept walking.

"So did you write your reflection essay?" I asked him.

He held up a stack of papers that looked like a short novel in response.

I grinned before he disappeared into the teacher's lounge to turn it in.

* * *

"Kana was so cool," Minami bragged while we sat in the back before class started. I just rolled my eyes and shook my head.

"It was only a punch," I said, but noticed Sawada watching me carefully. I knew that he was thinking about how Watanabe would even know me in the first place.

"Oh yeah. Now that I am single again," Minami said, running a hand through his hair. He looked at me. "Kana, I was wondering if…"

"Nope. I don't want a boyfriend I have to defend all the time," I said abruptly.

"Oooh!" the guys teased Minami. Sawada looked at me and I swear I saw a hint of a smile.

"But Minami, I will gladly be your friend," I continued. "I always defend my friends."

"Deal," he said, grinning. "Now I have to find another girl…" I smirked. Some people never change.

Uchi patted my head and I swatted his arm.

"But I wonder why Yankumi is so strong," he said suddenly. "She was good."

"Maybe she was a delinquent before too," Noda said.

Noda filled us in that after Minami had left, Yamaguchi had come in and lectured the class about how real friends defend each other, even if it means getting beat up together. She had then taken off, leaving the class feeling stupid for being so helpless.

I looked away, contemplating. Yamaguchi had offered no explanations after that, and even though I wanted to know, she had the right to her secrets. I had mine.

Yamaguchi walked into class, and we all quieted down.

"Good morning, class," she said, showing no sign of holding the events of yesterday over our heads.

"Osu," Uchi mumbled.

"Morning," Minami added.

"Good morning," Noda said in English without looking at her. Kuma saluted her. And for once, Sawada was sitting up and paying attention.

She turned her eyes on me and I nodded to her.

"Let's begin class," she said with a smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Girls often write love letters and stick them in the guys' shoe locker in Japan  
> *"Baka" means idiot/stupid  
> *Reflection essays have to be written when you do something wrong
> 
> Thanks for reading!
> 
> I'd appreciate any thoughts/questions/concerns if you have them! ^^
> 
> \- Reisa


	4. Judging by Appearances

After the fight with Watanabe, other than the occasional skirmishes on campus, nothing else had really happened. I fell into a routine of going to school, hanging out with Sawada's group after school and then going home.

I was finally getting the hang of things at Shirokin Gakuen. Of course there were moments when I was caught off guard, like when the guys would randomly decide to be shirtless and I'd crash into them in the hallways. I'd also seen more adult magazines in the few weeks that I'd been at Shirokin than I had ever seen in my life. At least at home, the guys were discreet enough to hide them. In fact, if I didn't live in the environment I did at home, I probably would be scarred for life from being at Shirokin.

And ever since Sawada had rescued me from the awkward welcome parties, they had stopped. I still got the occasional letters in my shoe box, but those soon dwindled as the "ideal schoolgirl" image that they were so desperately hoping to see from me faded away.

3-D seemed to accept me and no longer made stupid passes at me for being a girl. After all, I was now "part" of Sawada's group, which seemed to control the works in Class 3-D. Instead, I was slowly becoming the class consultant on what they should do to attract more girls. They had yet to realize that I really didn't know myself.

The more I spent time with 3-D, the more I realized why they hated their teachers so much. Sawatari couldn't figure out why I hadn't already come to him begging to be taken out of 3-D so he tried to take matters into his own hands. He first forced me to sit in on different classes in my year, to see if I liked them any better. The only thing I discovered through that experience was that all of the teachers treated 3-D differently. While there was a lot of student-teacher interaction in the classes I sat in on, the teachers would literally just write down the lesson on the board for 3-D and try not to look at the class. When they were forced to answer questions, which happened rarely because most of our class could care less about learning, the teachers would only look at me.

When I told Sawatari that even after sitting in on classes 3-A, 3-B  _and_  3-C that I preferred to say in 3-D, he asked me if they were blackmailing me with any information. I responded that I was pretty sure I had more material to blackmail them with than they had for me. Sawatari then asked me if I would more or less be willing to be his spy and tell him that kind of information. I flat out refused and walked out of the teacher's lounge. Since then, he left me alone.

The only teacher that was different was Yankumi. And yes, I had given in and starting calling her by her nickname. Even though I had said it almost unconsciously one day, I couldn't forget the way that she beamed afterwards. She alone would try to interact with us regularly, almost to a point where she was becoming extremely nosy.

For example, Yankumi had recently handed out a form for us to fill out what we wanted to do in the future.

"You haven't turned that in?" Minami asked me as I stared down at the blank form.

"I don't know what to write," I admitted.

"Just write whatever and turn it in!" Kuma said. "It's not like we actually get a grade on it or that she even really cares. I just wrote I want to eat forever. "

"What did you write?" I asked Uchi after we all stopped laughing.

"Huh? Oh…uhhh something random," he said absentmindedly.

"Oh…okay," I said, a little confused. He didn't seem like he was himself much. But if the other guys weren't going to bring it up, I wouldn't either.

* * *

"Hey, you hear about this?" Shun asked me one day when I was getting ready to go to school. He had the TV on, and I leaned closer to look. There was a local news flash about a young masked man that kept targeting women, catching them in dark alleyways at night and stealing their purses. The suspect was believed to be a young male student. The news reporter warned viewers to be careful at night.

"Be careful, Kana," Shun said to me, but in a teasing manner.

"Do you see me carrying a purse?" I shot back. He threw a random pillow at me.

"Have a good day at school, kid."

* * *

"Ohayou," the class greeted me when I walked in.

"Yo," I answered, opening my locker and putting my bag inside. "Hey, Uchi…"

He walked away from me without a word. I glanced at Noda and Kuma, and they shrugged. Their attention was quickly stolen by the arrival of Sawada, who never came to school this early.

Uchi came back when homeroom was just about to begin. I watched as some classmates rigged the door so that when Yankumi opened it, a handful of chalk dust would get dumped on her head.

When she walked in, half of her hair turned white and her glasses fogged up.

"Baka! Baka!" the class chanted and laughed at her.

"ALL OF YOU, I'LL TAKE ALL OF YOU ON OUTSIDE RIGHT NOW!" Yankumi shouted, whipping off her glasses.

I grinned. Yankumi would sometimes drop the teacher act and say some pretty violent things.

When Yankumi finally cooled down, she told us that some local policemen had dropped by to tell us about the recent muggings that have been going on.

"Are they accusing us?" Noda demanded.

"No, they're just going around to all the local schools telling students to be careful…"

"They are so accusing us," Minami said angrily. "The friendly lady at the drug store near my house now watches what I do in her store like a hawk."

"Ando (the history teacher) even goes out of his way to avoid me in hallways," Kuma said between mouthfuls of his breakfast.

"We should boycott his class, right Uchi?" Noda said.

"Huh? Oh…yeah," Uchi mumbled.

Throughout the day, Uchi was like this. He would usually tease me over something at least once per class period, but even when I called him "Uchi-chan", he barely responded.

Even when the guys were getting riled up over a picture of some skanky girl on Noda's PC during lunch, he hardly made a sound.

"What's up?" Sawada asked Uchi, who looked at him in surprise.

"Nothing," he answered and decided to leave early. "Hey guys, I'm skipping the rest of the afternoon," he said.

After he walked out of the room, we all turned and faced each other.

"There's something weird going on with him," Minami said. So they had noticed.

I decided to go after him. The way he was acting worried me. I caught him at the school gate.

"You sure you don't want to hang out after school today?" I asked. He looked as he was struggling for an answer.

"I...I'm busy today," he said. "Sorry." With that, he took off.

"Uchi had things to do," I reported blankly to the rest when I returned to the classroom.

"I saw him at the arcade last night. He lost a game and got pissed, so he got up to leave. He crashed into an arcade worker and snapped at him to be careful," Sawada said.

I sighed. This was not the Uchi we all knew.

Minami suddenly put his arm around me. I glared at him.

"What are you doing?" I asked. He shrugged.

"I'm acting like Uchi," he said casually. "Don't tell me you don't think we haven't noticed you two. Are you going out?"

I shoved Minami's arm off, much to the amusement of the others. "No," I said to him. "And don't get any ideas."

Uchi didn't answer any of my texts all day. I decided to respect his space but I couldn't help but feel uneasy.

* * *

The next morning, I was furious to see a bunch of WANTED signs posted everywhere. Apparently, the local burglar had struck again last night and the victim had managed to pull the mask off, revealing a man with a mass of blond hair. The picture next to the description, to my horror, looked exactly like Uchi.

To make matters worse, Uchi didn't show up to school. It didn't help that rumors started circulating that Uchi was not that financially well off at the moment.

"HE DIDN'T DO IT!" I shouted at a group of gossiping guys in the hallway. Minami and Noda had to hold me back before I pounced on them to beat them up. The other guys ran away.

"Hey, calm down," Sawada said to me. I exhaled an angry breath.

"Maybe he feels uncomfortable about coming to school where everyone will talk about him," Minami said. We all considered this as I pushed Minami and Noda's arms away.

"After all, these posters are put up almost everywhere," Noda pointed out. "Who wouldn't?"

"How about going out and finding the culprit ourselves?" Kuma said excitedly but got hit on the head by Minami.

"How would we even do that?" Minami asked.

"Well…I dunno…what about trying to nab the guy while he's in action?"

"Baka," Noda said. "That would never work, right Shin?"

Sawada looked up. "It would be good way to cure boredom," he said.

"Eh? Shin's actually into it?" Minami said, jumping off his desk.

"But how would we find the culprit?" I asked. It wasn't going to be easy. That was for sure.

"The culprit always strikes in dark alleyways around the business district around the same time every night. If we stake the area and nab him before the police do and turn him in, it'll look pretty good for us."

"Whoa," the guys said impressed. I had to admit I was as well.

"That's a brilliant plan," a voice said.

We all nodded, then turned to see Yankumi standing there.

"Yankumi!" Minami said loudly.

"How come you're standing there like that?" Noda demanded.

"You guys are extremely impressive. You will do anything for Uchi, wouldn't you? That is a great sign of friendship. We will catch the culprit and clear Uchi's name together!" Yankumi said dramatically. "You guys are awesome, just like I thought. That leaves me no choice but to help you guys. Let's find the new culprit, OH~!" she said, pumping a fist in the air. She whirled around and looked at us excitedly while we stared at her.

"You guys do it with me. OH!" she said.

"Oh..." Minami, Noda, and Kuma said unenthusiastically.

"That's weak! Again! OH!" she repeated.

"OH!" Minami, Noda, and Kuma said, whooping loudly.

"Come on, Sawada, Kana. OH~!"

"Are you stupid?" Sawada said, and walked away. I rolled my eyes as Noda "collapsed" onto Minami at the lack of enthusiasm from Sawada. To me, finding the culprit wasn't some game to me. I wanted to clear Uchi's name. Things were going to get interesting...

* * *

"Where are you going?" Shun asked me that night.

"Culprit hunting," I responded as I pulled on a jacket.

"…You're not going to mess around, are you?"

"I promise to come back in one piece," I muttered, before going out. Seriously, he was so overprotective sometimes.

* * *

I met the guys at a park near the business district. It was pretty weird to see the guys wearing casual clothing as opposed to their uniforms for once.

"Kana, can't you dress a little bit more cutely?" Noda asked me.

"I am not here to look cute," I shot back.

He held up his arms in defense.

Yankumi ran up to us. "Where's Sawada?" she asked.

"Over there," Kuma pointed to where Sawada sat on a bench.

"Hey, are we really doing this?" Minami asked Yankumi.

"Of course we are! Are you going to sit around while Uchi is being accused of a crime?" Yankumi said enthusiastically.

"Just don't get in the way," was all Sawada said to Yankumi, who began to retort angrily.

"Come on," I said to the others, walking after Sawada.

Yankumi showed us the map where the incidents had occurred.

"They were all in between bars and residential areas," Sawada pointed out. "Let's split up, yeah?"

We split into three groups. I was paired with Noda, Minami with Yankumi, and Kuma with Sawada.

Just as we were about to depart, we heard a commotion across the street. A very drunk Sawatari stumbled out of a bar and startled babbling nonsense to the pretty lady he was with. He rolled around the floor like a baby, giggling.

Can we seriously wash our eyes with soap right now?

"Let's pretend we didn't see that," Yankumi said slowly. "That would be the honorable thing to do."

But we all filed it away as a bit of blackmail at the back of our minds.

Noda and I jogged around our area twice, but we didn't see anyone or anything suspicious.

When we all met up again in an hour, no one had any leads.

"Well, I guess we'd better stop for now. There's always tomorrow," Yankumi said.

"Eh? Tomorrow?" Kuma asked.

"Of course! You guys came up with this plan!"

Minami groaned. "We never meant this to be so serious…"

"You mean, clearing Uchi's name is not serious?" I snapped and they shut up, staring at the ground.

"Uchi…" Sawada suddenly said. We looked up and saw him staring at us.

"Hey, guess what Uchi? We're all trying to clear your name!" Yankumi said. "We all believe you, so don't worry about showing up to school."

"What are you talking about? I don't care a bit about that. I'm not going to school because I don't want to, that's all. Don't do things that I didn't even ask for," he muttered, walking past us.

"Don't you know that your mom is worried about you?" Yankumi demanded.

"She has nothing to do with this," Uchi hissed and walked away.

I ran and caught up to him, forcing him to look at me.

"What's going on?" I demanded.

"It has nothing to do with you either," he said, wrenching his arm away from me.

"Yeah? Then it's a waste worrying about you, isn't it?" I said angrily.

"…Kana…" he said hesitantly.

Suddenly, we saw movement and looked up. Sawada stood on the top of the stairs near us.

"It's true that we're just messing at first…but some people are serious about this," he said.

"So what?" Uchi said. I stared at him. Did he not know how to consider other people's feelings?

"Fine," I said. "I'll leave you alone. Deal with your problems yourself."

I walked away, disappointed. I thought that I had finally found some friends I could trust. But they were the all too typical group of guys, immature and irresponsible.

"Hey, you shouldn't walk home alone," Sawada said, running up to me.

"I'll be fine. I'm so angry I could take that anyone that tries to touch me."

"I'm sure you could," he smirked. "Still…"

"I'm fine," I said firmly.

After a moment, he relented. "Take this then," he said, handing me a tiny pocketknife. "Don't cut yourself though." With that, he left.

* * *

When I got home, Shun could see I was in a bad mood.

"Who does he think we're doing this for?" I fumed.

"How do you know he didn't do it?' Shun asked me. "You've only known him for a little while."

"…He may be hotheaded and impulsive, but he wouldn't do anything maliciously towards anyone," I answered.

Then why did I feel so disappointed by him?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!! ^^


	5. Ditching and Culprit Hunting

I saw Uchi on the way to school the next morning, but he was headed toward a park away from school. At first, I had this urge to just ignore him, but I couldn't help following him. He walked over to a cluster of bushes that concealed him from everyone else. I heard soft whimpering and saw a small cardboard box from which a small puppy crawled out. Uchi smiled as he fed it some pieces of sandwich meat.

"How cute~" two elementary school girls exclaimed when they spotted the puppy as they walked by. "Can we pet it please?"

"Okay," Uchi relented. When he looked up, he saw me standing there. He stared for a moment before looking away.

"So. Is this why you're ditching school?" I asked casually.

"It's a lot more complicated than that!" he said angrily. I sat down by him and smirked.

"Well, I don't know. Feeding a stray puppy seems like a good reason to ditch."

Uchi just stared at me, trying to decide whether I was serious or just messing with him. He gave up and sighed, leaning against the tree behind him. The two girls went on their way, saying they'd come back to see the puppy. It now crawled onto Uchi's lap, trying to find a comfortable spot.

"Look, I've got all the time you need, if you're going to talk to me," I said, sitting on the grass beside him.

"Aren't you mad at me?" he asked me, turning his head to look at me.

"I am. But it's not fair for me to say that you're not a good friend if I don't try to be a good friend to you."

His mouth twitched as he contemplated this. Then he began to speak.

"I live with my mom, and we're not that well off. Last month, my mom collapsed at work from fatigue, and that's slowed down her work. I feel like all she works for is for me, and I'm done freeloading off of her struggles. So I…I want to quit school and get a job."

I closed my eyes, just listening to him. Uchi really was a good person, and I felt bad for thinking otherwise.

"All that for your mom?" I asked.

"She's better off without me anyway," he said, plucking absentmindedly at the grass.

"Why didn't you tell me?" I asked.

He looked down at the puppy, not meeting my eyes. "Leaving school was something that I had been thinking about ever since my mom got hurt and even more when Yankumi passed out that paper about our futures…I guess I thought it'd be weird to tell you when you just started at Shirokin and I'm thinking about leaving. And I'd already made my decision, so I didn't want people to try to convince me to stay."

Suddenly, my cell phone rang, and we both were startled by the sound.

"You with Uchi?" Sawada asked when I picked up.

"Yeah," I answered. 'Sa-wa-da,' I mouthed to Uchi, who looked hesitant.

"…Is he okay?" Sawada asked.

"We're fine."

"Look, Yamaguchi has this weird plan to catch the culprit, so meet us after school, same place as yesterday?" he said.

"Sure," I said. At least Yankumi seemed to be serious about this, which was more than what I could say about the rest of the guys.

I hung up and smiled at Uchi. "Seems like I'm ditching with you." I reached forward to caress the puppy's soft fur. It licked my hand, nuzzling its cold wet nose against my palm.

* * *

For the rest of the morning, Uchi and I took care of the puppy and asking each other questions.

"Why did you come to Shirokin anyway?" he asked me.

"…I made a promise with my parents that I would at least graduate from high school. But I guess after getting expelled twice, there aren't a whole lot of schools eager to take me."

"And they're okay with you going to an all boys' school?" Uchi asked, brows raised.

"Kind of," I said, trying to be as vague as possible. "Anyway, what kind of job are you looking for?"

"At this point, I'm trying not to be picky," he said. "But being from Shirokin isn't doing me any favors right now. They judge me already based on that. That…and my hair."

"…You could always cut it," I said slowly, but hesitated to say it. I knew hair could be a touchy subject for guys, or at least the ones I lived with.

"I know…" he said miserably.

"It's okay. I've been wanting to dye my hair but…"

"Your parents are against that and not against you going to an all boys' school?" Uchi asked incredulously.

We looked at each other and burst out laughing. When he put it that way, it did seem silly. Even though it wasn't my parents against it, but he didn't need to know that.

"Where do you live?" he asked me, changing the subject.

"That's a secret," I said, and he laughed. "What?"

He just shook his head in amusement. "Alright then. Guess we won't be going over anytime soon."

"Yes, please don't," I replied. The chaos that would occur if they came over…

"I'm going to buy us some lunch. Takoyaki* okay?" he asked me, standing up. I nodded.

"We'll split," I said, passing him some bills.

When he came back, he kept glancing over his shoulder.

"What's up?" I asked him.

"Oh nothing. Just the guys at the takoyaki stand are sort of strange. They told me to always listen to what my teachers say even though they look like gangsters."

Okay…

"So what do you think of Yankumi?" I asked him as we ate the takoyaki.

"She's…interesting, I guess," he answered. "but she's different than the other teachers. She saved Kuma's butt when she first got here."

He began to tell me of an incident between Kuma and Sawatari that occurred during Yankumi's first week teaching Class 3-D. Kuma had taken a bag from Sawatari as a joke, but that bag had contained a large sum of money. On the way home from school, however, some unruly gang had come across Kuma and had taken the money from him. When confronted by the teachers, Kuma lied and said that the bag he had been seen holding had contained donuts. Of course no one believed him. But Yankumi said that she did, and she went out of her way to search for the bag that he had supposedly thrown into the river. She searched for it all night in the litter-strewn riverbank so she could prove Kuma's innocence. When Kuma saw this, he confessed to her that he had taken the money. She then somehow replaced the money and returned it to Sawatari, saying that she had found the bag of money on the school grounds.

"Where did she get the money?" I asked.

"No one knows. I only heard about this from Shin recently so I didn't even know about it really back then. But anyways, after that, she promised to see our entire class graduate," Uchi said. "But I guess you can tell by now that it won't be easy. Most of us don't think we can or really want to graduate anyways."

"No offense to her, but she's sort of stupid. What kind of teacher would do all that for a student, especially people like us?" I said skeptically.

"I don't know," Uchi said with a shrug. "Shin told her that there's no way we would trust any teacher. Maybe she just wants to prove him wrong or something. Anyhow, it doesn't make a difference since I'm quitting school anyways."

We fell into silence. I wanted to tell him not to quit, that he would be sorely missed if he did. But this was his own decision. I had no right to tell him what to do, especially since he was doing this for a good reason.

Uchi left soon afterwards, saying that he had an interview for a job.

"Good luck," I said. "What should I do with the puppy?"

"Those girls will probably be back so he'll be okay," Uchi assured me. "…You won't tell the others?"

"No. It's not their business."

He nodded. "…Thanks, Kana."

He seemed a little unsure of himself so I cheered him up in the only way I knew how. I smacked his shoulder as hard as I could.

"Go get that job!"

He grinned, clutching his shoulder.

* * *

I played with the puppy for a little while longer. It was funny how all of us in 3-D had such a disregard for adults, and yet Uchi still managed to care that much about his mom, even though he didn't quite show it in the most obvious way. I wondered about what I would do if I were in his position. I didn't quite know what it was like to have such a loving relationship with one's parent.

I checked my watch and stood up. Time to meet Sawada and the others. Luckily, at the moment, the two elementary girls came back and I handed off the puppy to them.

"Hey guys," I greeted when I reached our meeting spot.

"Kana~, ditching school with Uchi now, are we?" Minami teased.

"Yeah, whatever," I said.

"No really," he insisted, "how was it?"

"How was what?" I asked, getting irritated.

"The DATE!" Minami, Noda, and Kuma chorused.

"They think you guys ditched to go out," Sawada explained monotonously.

"Did you get some romance going?" Noda prodded with a grin, and that did it.

"Shut the hell up. There was no date, so quit talking like we went on one," I said, glaring at them.

Sawada looked at me and smirked. What was up with that?

"It's just something they'd obviously assume," he said. I shot him a look. He didn't need to rub it in.

"Ya~ho~" a voice called, interrupting the conversation.

We looked over and her and did a double take. It was Yankumi…or not. She was wearing knee-high white boots, polka-dotted gray leggings, really short shorts, a tight shirt, and a blonde wig. It was like she had mismatched things from the last few decades. She did look pretty without her glasses though.

"I tried dressing up in the now-fashion," she said. "Cool, right? The culprit targets women with purses. I'm the perfect bait," Yankumi beamed, swinging a large purse.

"What the heck?!" Kuma exclaimed and I snickered.

"And why the heck are you wearing sneakers?!" Noda demanded.

"So I can run faster!"

"No one dresses like this nowadays!" Minami groaned. He was right. There was no way that anyone would target someone dressed like Yankumi. It would be too…weird.

"Sawada, how is it?" she asked.

He had been standing at a tree and looked as though he might be laughing but he turned and coolly gazed at her. "I guess it's okay."

"HUH?!" the rest of us exclaimed. THAT was okay?

"Yosh! Let's go!" Yankumi said.

Sometimes, I felt like I couldn't keep up with Sawada's thoughts. Or maybe it was all the time.

* * *

Two hours later, it was already dark and I was hungry. We had tried several locations with the "Yankumi bait" with no luck. Yankumi was now strutting on the overpass. Everyone else was bored, but I was mostly frustrated.

"The culprit hasn't shown up!" Kuma complained while eating his fifth pastry.

"How long are we supposed to wait?" Noda moaned, leaning back tiredly.

"No one's going to target some crazy person like her," Sawada said.

I stared at him. We knew that, but why then would he allow her to waste our time like that?

Before I could say anything, my phone rang.

"Chiba!" I said angrily in a bit of a panic. "You're not supposed to call me right now!"

The guys all stared at me, interested in my phone call.

"Look, I'll talk to you later," I said, and hung up.

"Who was that?" Noda asked, tilting his head at me.

"Umm…"

We suddenly heard a scream. "Help! Someone! I'm getting robbed!"

_No way_. Our plan had worked.

We all ran toward the woman who was screaming for help. The thief, seeing us coming, began to run away, and we were hindered slightly when a car pulled up in between us.

I ran around the car and sprinted after the guy, who was definitely not Uchi as far as I could tell. The guy ran into Yankumi at the other end of the tunnel, where she somehow managed to stop him.

"Yankumi, are you alright?" Minami shouted from behind me.

Although it seemed like she was holding down the culprit in a headlock, she began to wail,

"He's got a hold of my arm!"

I was confused because she looked perfectly fine, but I quickly pushed her out of the way while Sawada, Minami, and Noda came and tackled and dogpiled the culprit.

"AAHHH!" Kuma shouted, running towards us.

"No, Kuma, stop!" Yankumi said frantically, but he dove anyways, landing on top of the guys in a flying leap. I winced at the groans of the others underneath Kuma, glad to be standing instead of getting crushed by Kuma's weight.

When the dogpile managed to untangle itself, we stood in a ring around the thief. Yankumi slowly lifted off his mask and sunglasses to reveal an old bald guy.

"This guy isn't a student at our school…" Kuma said.

"He's not even young," Yankumi muttered, and we all sighed in exasperated relief.

"Ah, he's the arcade manager that Uchi bumped into," Sawada said. I stared at the unconscious man.

"This fool was framing Uchi," I growled. Sawada put out an arm to stop me.

"He's out cold. There's no need to beat him up even more. Come on, let's turn him in."

I lied and said I had a curfew so I had to go home. I was glad we caught the guy but there was no way in hell I was walking into a situation where police were involved. The others seemed to buy it so I left immediately.

When I walked into the house, Shun was still up.

"We got the guy," I said, going straight for the fridge for some water.

"I still don't like you jumping into dangerous situations like that," Shun said.

"Whatever," I replied, annoyed. Why couldn't he just be happy for me that we were able to clear a classmate's reputation?

* * *

The next day, the 5 of us were called into the teacher's lounge. I had vehemently resisted but the others had dragged me along.

Sawatari and the other teachers stared at us in disbelief as Shinohara, the on-site detective, read us a certificate of appreciation. Yankumi was beaming the entire time, as if she was being given the certificate. Noda had a hand over his heart, while Kuma kept nodding in agreement to what was being read. I honestly didn't want a certificate. As friends, it was what was expected of us to do. Instead, I kept staring at Shinohara, trying to avoid his line of sight. It wouldn't be good if he looked and remembered me for future reference.

"You should be proud of them, Vice Principal Sawatari," Shinohara said.

"Well, it is rare that they do anything good for the community," was the reply.

"I guess I'll take a picture then," Iwamoto, the gym teacher, said.

While Noda, Minami, and Kuma posed with the certificate, Yankumi barged into the picture, taking the center stage. I couldn't help smiling a little bit. No matter how halfhearted the original attempt at clearing Uchi's name had been to them, they still managed to make it fun.

I slipped out of the teacher's lounge as soon as I could and called Uchi on his cell phone.

"Hey, we caught the thief that was framing you," I said, describing as quickly as I could the events of the previous night.

"Yeah?" Uchi responded tiredly.

"…You okay?" I asked.

"No one will give me a chance…They keep saying that they don't hire students, especially one from Shirokin."

"Just keep at it. I'm sure someone will hire you," I said more confidently than I felt. "Hey listen, I have to go now. Class is starting, so yeah. Talk to you later?"

He mumbled a response and we hung up.

"Uchi…is he okay?" Sawada asked, suddenly appearing beside me.

I shrugged. It wasn't my place to tell.

"So Yankumi, what are you going to give us as a reward for catching the culprit, huh?" Noda asked.

"I'm going to treat you to lunch today!" she beamed.

"Really?!" Noda, Minami, and Kuma exclaimed.

* * *

By lunch, she meant the school cafeteria lunch.

"You really expect us to just accept this?" Noda demanded. "This is the school lunch!"

"When someone treats you, you don't complain," Yankumi said simply. "Let's eat!"

Only Kuma began to eat without any complaints.

As we ate, Yankumi suddenly said, "It's a good thing we cleared Uchi's name, right?"

I didn't want to say it, but Uchi's problems were far from over.

"Will you stop looking so expressionless?" Yankumi said to Sawada. "I can never tell what you're thinking." He ignored her, slurping his spaghetti.

Kawashima, the school nurse, suddenly burst into the cafeteria, running up to us. "Uchiyama's in the teacher's lounge. He's in trouble!"

I dropped everything and began to run. What had happened now, Uchi?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Takoyaki are bits of octopus cooked into batter and shaped into little balls
> 
> Thank you for reading! Let me know what you liked/disliked/have questions on! (: - Reisa


	6. Sweet and Bitter Sentiments

Despite my head start, I only reached the teacher's lounge a few moments before everyone else.

"Uchi…" I said and he looked up from where he sat next to who I assumed was his mother in front of Sawatari. He immediately looked back at his hands.

"What happened?" Yankumi asked walking up to them.

"Uchiyama beat up Teradomari from Class 3-A," Sawatari said. "It's a week's worth of bed-ridden injuries."

From what I had heard about that Teradomari kid, he probably deserved it. He was just another arrogant smartass. But of course,  _that_  wasn't the problem here.

"Uchiyama, why did you fight him?" Yankumi asked. Uchi remained silent.

"If you won't tell us, we can't argue that your actions are justifiable," Sawatari said but Uchi wouldn't say a word, even when his mom prompted him. "See, it's such a waste if some students do good things, and others cause problems like this. It all adds up to nothing!" Sawatari scolded him. "I hope you're ready for consequences."

"I was already going to quit school," Uchi said suddenly. Everyone stared at him.

His mom gasped. "Haruhiko, what are you saying?"

"It's a decision I made a while back. Thank you for everything until now," Uchi said, standing and bowing before leaving the lounge.

Yankumi and the others chased after him, but by the time they got to the front, Uchi had already left.

"You knew, didn't you?" Sawada said to me quietly.

I didn't answer. I felt terrible for Uchi. It was one thing to quit school, but it was another thing entirely to get expelled, which was probably what would happen to Uchi for beating up Teradomari. He would have to be upfront about his expulsion to future employers, which would severely harm his chances of getting a job even more than ever.

"What can we do?" Noda asked frustratedly.

"Let's try to find out the cause of the fight," Yankumi said. "And we should try to find Uchiyama as quickly as possible."

"Kana and I will look for him," Sawada said quickly.

I was surprised by the sudden nomination but I nodded. The sooner we found him…

"Alright. The rest of us will ask around about Teradomari," Yankumi said. I was incredibly impressed with how quickly she took action but there was no time for that now.

Sawada and I caught up to Uchi's mom as she was leaving the school.

"Is there anything that would tell us where Uchi would be right now?" Sawada asked her.

"Well, I did find this on his desk a couple of days ago," she said, handing us a local job magazine. "It was turned to this page this morning." She looked and sounded so distressed.

"We'll do our best to locate him," I promised her. She took my hands gratefully.

"I would appreciate that so much," she said, bowing as tears filled her eyes.

I did my best to ignore the twinge in my chest as Sawada and I took off to find Uchi.

* * *

Based on the jobs that Uchi had circled and crossed out on the job magazine, we narrowed down our search to a small restaurant near the park. We arrived just as Uchi disappeared inside.

We decided to wait outside, but we could hear how the interview was going.

"We don't want to hire any potential troublemakers here," a person who I assumed was the owner of the restaurant said harshly after criticizing Uchi's appearance.

Moments later, Uchi emerged from within the restaurant, looking dejected.

"Shin…Kana…" he said. He forced a smile.

"So it's not going well?" I asked him as we walked through the park.

Uchi shook his head. "The school doesn't want me, my mom doesn't want me, jobs don't want me…no one wants me…" He said this in a slightly joking manner but his voice trailed off sadly at the end.

Uchi just couldn't catch a break. First, he was framed as a criminal and now society would reject him without knowing that all he wanted to do was help his mom. I clenched my fists, angry at how we were boxed in from every side.

"Are you really going to quit school?" Sawada asked.

"Yeah," Uchi said, sticking his hands in his pocket. "I've already decided."

"I thought that I could quit school anytime too, you know," Sawada began. "But lately…I don't know why, but school's been fun. Maybe it's because of that crazy teacher."

"Yankumi?" Uchi said, and Sawada nodded.

"Uchiyama!" Yankumi shouted, running up to us. Speaking of the devil…

"I heard why you attacked that student," she said as she caught her breath. "He was hurting the stray puppy you found and were caring for, right? That's why you hit him."

"The puppy…" I gasped. Uchi hung his head, then turned and began to walk away.

"It's true that it's not okay to hurt other people. But that's no reason to quit school," Yankumi continued, walking after him.

"It doesn't matter," Uchi said.

"Your mom…she's going to go apologize to Teradomari," Yankumi said.

"So?"

"Can't you consider your mom's feelings for once?!" Yankumi demanded.

"Shut up!" Uchi burst out, unleashing his frustration at her. "My mom would be better off without me! She's always had to deal with my problems, bowing her head to people every time I caused problems and whatnot! I'm going to make my own money now so I can live without depending on my parents."

"Stop acting so high and might!" Yankumi shouted back at him. I cringed.  _What the heck?_  "No one can do anything alone! Can't you see that? Where do you think you got everything you have? Whose food did you eat and become so tall? Where did the clothes you're wearing come from? It's all from your mom who worked hard for you! She's never run away from you or backed down from being called out to school on your behalf. She does all of this for you!"

I bit my lip, trying to keep my temper. I wanted to defend Uchi, but Sawada beat me to it.

"He knows that," Sawada said a lot more calmly than I would have. "He's doing all this for his mom. She hurt her back last month, so he wants to work in her place and make it easier for her. Right, Uchi?"

Yankumi was speechless.

"You didn't have to tell her," Uchi muttered.

"Sorry…" Yankumi said apologetically. "I said too much."

I was taken aback. Yankumi was actually apologizing. Every teacher I encountered would have brushed it off as our fault anyway.

"Let's go," Sawada said, clapping Uchi on the back.

"Where?" Uchi asked.

"You aren't going to make your mom apologize all by herself, are you?"

* * *

When we reached the Teradomari's house, Uchi's mom was already there, apologizing. The kid was bandaged up everywhere and had his arm in a sling. Teradomari's mom was going on and on about how brilliant her child is and how Uchi was such the opposite. I gripped Uchi's arm, trying to encourage him.

"You know, your mom said that you're her life," Yankumi said softly. "No matter how much trouble you cause, she'll do anything for you."

"I'm really sorry," Uchi's mother was saying, bowing humbly.

"Where is your son?" the kid's mother demanded. "Isn't he here to apologize? You must keep a better eye on him! He's so reckless that he's even been mistaken as a criminal!"

"My son may be violent and may not be very smart, but he won't attack anyone without a good reason to," Uchi's mom suddenly defended. Admiration flared up in my heart for her, and I could see it in Uchi's eyes as well.

"I thought you came here to apologize, not accuse!" the woman said shrilly.

At this point, Uchi walked up to stand beside his mother. He bowed his head deeply.

"I'm really sorry for what I've done. There's no way to make up for it," he said. His mom stared at him for a moment before bowing again alongside him.

I watched this scene and couldn't help but feel a bitter emotion well up inside me.

* * *

On the way back to school, Yankumi, Sawada and I hung back a little bit so that Uchi could speak to his mom.

"Mom…I'm sorry," he said, swallowing his pride. "I'm really sorry."

"What are you saying, silly boy," she said, blinking back tears and patting him on the back. Uchi's mom then turned to me. "You must be Kana. My son has told me about you."

"Mom," he groaned.

"Why don't you come over for dinner?" she invited, extending the invitation to Sawada and Yankumi.

I stiffened. Dinner meant talking about my past, my current situation.

"I'm sorry but I have to decline. Thank you though," I said with a bow.

"Come on, Kana," Uchi said. "My mom's cooking is better than the takoyaki we shared yesterday."

Sawada raised an eyebrow at me, but I ignored him.

"I'm busy tonight," I lied quickly. Uchi's mom smiled understandingly.

"Then you'll have to come another time. Thank you Yamaguchi-Sensei. I'll take him home now."

She took Uchi's arm even though he vehemently protested and they began to walk away together. I stared after them.

Yankumi began to wipe away dramatic tears.

"Parents and children are meant to be like this," she said dramatically.

"You're not so bad," Sawada said suddenly. Yankumi stared at him.

"Awww, your expression is so hard to read! But you're not a bad person either. You're a really good person!" she said, ruffling his hair. He pulled away irritably.

"I don't need to hear it from  _you_ ," he said, and we began to walk away.

Yankumi really was an interesting teacher. Even the little things she did were different from any teacher I'd had before. But why was she like this? As far as I could tell, doing so much for us would give her no real reward. She was just weird.

"You lied about being busy," Sawada said without looking at me.

"So?"

"Uchi doesn't open his heart to just anyone. I wouldn't treat that lightly if I were you," he said.

"…Are you just jealous that I just stole your best friend?" I asked teasingly.

He ignored me and kept walking. Like Yankumi said, Sawada was a good guy but there were times I felt like he could see right through me. I knew I needed to be more careful around him from now on.

* * *

The next day, we found out that Teradomari had to pay a fine for animal abuse. His mother, in order to avoid having charges pressed against him, asked the school to act as if nothing happened, which meant Uchi would not get expelled.

The class began to cheer loudly and clap Uchi on the back. I sighed in relief. I knew that only Yankumi could have done this and a part of me wondered if I was being unfair by not giving her a chance.

At lunch, Uchi took out his lunchbox and we all stared at it hungrily.

"Aww~ is it Mommy's love-filled lunch?" Noda teased.

" **NO** ," Uchi said. "Leave me alone."

Kuma reached over. "Let me have some!"

"Mine," Uchi said. "Don't touch! Ah, but Kana can have some," he added.

"It's so good!" I said, chewing on some fried shrimp.

"See what you missed last night? You should have come over," Uchi said triumphantly. I laughed it off.

"You guys make such a great couple," Minami said with a sigh. Uchi and I stared at him, then at each other.

"It's not like that,  **STUPID**!" we both said simultaneously. "Can you believe this guy?  _No way_!" Minami stared at us with wide eyes as Noda and Kuma cracked up. Uchi snuck a look at me and grinned.

"Oi, Yankumi. We thought of what we want you to treat us to for catching the culprit," Noda said when she approached. "Include Uchi while you're at it and treat us all again!"

"Yes! Don't think you can get away with just a school lunch. I want steak," Kuma jumped in.

"Shabu-shabu* for me!" Noda said grandly, waving his arm.

"I want sushi!" Minami said, pumping his fists.

"I treated you already," Yankumi protested.

"That was cafeteria food!" they shouted back at her in unison.

"The rest of this discussion…will be prolonged until later," she said, running away quickly.

"HEY!" Noda shouted after her. "That's  _CHEAP_!"

Uchi stared at them in bewilderment as I watched them in amusement.

"You didn't miss anything," I said to him as the other guys grumbled loudly.

"You just called me Yankumi for the first time!" we heard Yankumi yell at Sawada by the entrance of the cafeteria. "Aww~ you don't have to be so embarrassed!"

Sawada muttered something and walked towards us, rolling his eyes.

As I stared at Uchi and how his friends started laughing and joking with him once more, I felt a tightness in my chest. I knew that getting too attached to them would be dangerous, for them and for me. But a part of me just couldn't keep away.

* * *

After school, I pulled Uchi aside.

"I want to celebrate your return with this," I said, pulling out a box from my schoolbag.

"…You want me to dye my hair brown?"

"No,  _me_!" I said.

"Ohhhh…..okay!" Uchi said, finally getting it. "Where are we going to do this?"

I grinned. As far as I could tell, I was the only person using the girls' bathroom. The teachers had their own, and since Sawatari had installed a lock ever since some boys were caught sneaking into mine, I was the only person who had access to it. There was also a nice deep sink for the task at hand.

"Whoa, it's so nice and clean in here!" Uchi said when I let him in when no one was looking.

"Alright, so what do I need to do first?" I asked.

"Leave it to me," he said.

Uchi expertly began to apply the dye once a towel was wrapped securely over my shoulders. "Are you sure your parents are going to be okay with this?" he asked once everything was applied.

"Isn't it a bit late to be asking that?" I pointed out.

Sure, Shun would be pissed but I was willing to risk that. It was my hair after all.

I almost regretted it when I remembered that I would have to wait over half an hour with this stuff in my hair, but time passed quickly since Uchi kept asking for more details about the culprit hunting and what the guys meant by Yankumi treating them to a meal.

Uchi gently washed out the excess dye out and even helped me towel dry my hair. I stared at myself in the mirror.

"Now I'm definitely part of 3-D," I said, running my fingers through my hair. The color was darker than Noda's hair, but it was definitely brown now. "Thanks Uchi!" I said, punching his shoulder lightly.

"It's the least that I can do…"

I hopped onto the bathroom counter so that I could sit and still be eye to eye with him.

"Hey," I said, pulling him closer by his jacket sleeves. "Don't say that no one wants you, okay? Because that's not true."

He stared down at his shoes so I placed my hands on his cheeks to force him to look at me.

"Promise me," I said.

"…okay."

"Good," I said, briefly pressing our foreheads together for good measure. "Alright, how about we get out of here before you get re-expelled for being caught in the girls' bathroom?"

He grinned and I checked to see that the hallway was empty before letting him out.

We stopped at the park to feed the puppy one last time.

"The two girls that came to see the puppy the other day want to keep him," he told me.

"That's good, little guy. Now you'll have a home," I murmured to the puppy as it jumped around in my lap.

"Thanks Kana...for being there," Uchi said suddenly. I looked at him and he looked away, embarrassed.

"Look...it's what friends do," I said, remembering what Sawada had said to me. I knew now that if I asked for Uchi's heart, he would give it to me. Not because he was desperate or because he was stupid, but because that was the kind of compassionate person that he was. "And we are friends, right?"

He looked at me surprised then socked my arm lightly. "Stupid. What else would we be if not friends, huh?"

"Well..." I said with a smile and left it at that.

* * *

"What did you do to your hair?" Shun demanded when I came home.

"Uchi dyed it," I responded. "Doesn't it look nice?"

"What do you think you're doing?" Shun asked, his tone telling me that I was in huge trouble. "You dye your hair, deliberately disobeying me, you stay out late doing dangerous things, you give me attitude…maybe going to Shirokin was a bad idea after all."

"You didn't want me to dye my hair because you're worried about my image and my reputation. But it's my own life!"

"I'm just trying to keep you safe!" Shun responded, his voice rising.

"Well you're not my dad, are you?" I shouted at him.

He looked at me, startled. "What did you say?"

"Nothing," I said quickly, walking away from him. "I'm going to go work out."

I walked to the storeroom, where we kept some work out equipment. As I pulled on my gloves and began to hit the punching bag as hard as I could, I couldn't suppress the tears. It wasn't fair. I bit my lip and continued to hit and kick at the sand bag, but I couldn't get the feeling to go away. I hadn't meant to say that to Shun, but watching Uchi interact with his mom had brought up emotions that I didn't know I even had.

Never had I seen a parent and child care so much for each other. I turned away, knowing that I would never understand that feeling. I wouldn't know what it was like to fight and make up with my parents like that. I wouldn't know because I didn't have parents.

I knew Shun was watching me from the doorway. I paused when I heard him approach me, my shoulders tense. He grabbed me by the back of my shirt collar and threw me to the ground. The pain of sliding against the concrete floor shot through me.

"Damn straight I'm not your dad," he said angrily, "but this is the path you chose, remember? Quit acting like a child and grow up."

Loud laughter suddenly came from the entrance of the house, breaking the silence and I knew that the others were back.

"Get up," Shun said before turning and leaving the room.

I sat up and pulled my knees to my chest, muffling my sobs. It was true...but it just wasn't fair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Shabu-shabu: Japanese-style hot pot
> 
> Thank you for reading! I know some of this is confusing, especially since things about Kana & her background are being revealed little by little, but let me know if something is particularly confusing.
> 
> As always, I appreciate your questions/comments/concerns! ^^
> 
> \- Reisa


	7. Taking Risks

The next day, I left the house super early in the morning. I had barely slept and because of crying, my eyes were super puffy. Shun was probably still mad and disappointed with me and I didn't want to face that.

I was the first one in class, as no one came that early, so I put my head down on my arms and went to sleep.

I awoke when I heard voices around me.

"Is that a new girl?"  
"But she's sitting in Kana's desk."  
"But Kana has black hair."  
"Do you think she's okay?"

I sleepily raised my head to see my classmates staring at me.

"Whoa! Kana! You dyed your hair?!" Noda exclaimed.

_Huh?_  Oh yeah…I had. I tugged at my braid, staring at the brown strands.

"Uchi did it for me," I said quietly.

"Uchi?!" the guys all said.

When Uchi entered the classroom, he was bombarded with questions.

"Did you dye Kana's hair?"  
"Why did you dye her hair and not mine?"  
"That's not fair! When are you going to do mine?"

I looked at Uchi apologetically. I didn't realize his hair-coloring skills were so highly coveted.

"I helped all of you out the first time!" he shouted at them. "It was Kana's first time so of course I'd help her!"

The class shut up, and because they had incurred Uchi's wrath, they all began to compliment my hair as well as my earrings, which I had left off for a while now.

Sawada walked in, borderline late as usual, and stared at me. "Who are you?" he asked.

I gave him the finger and he smirked, taking his seat.

Yankumi even told me that she liked my new hair, that it seemed to brighten up my face. She also asked me if I would teach her to braid her hair. I told her to ask Uchi. Braiding a teacher's hair seemed too weird to me.

Sawatari gasped when he saw me later on in the day, but seemed to buy it when I casually told him that this was closer to my natural hair color.

"As long as you don't make it blonde," he said, glaring at Uchi who stood at a distance.

But every time someone mentioned my hair, though, it was a reminder of what had happened with Shun. I knew that I was in the wrong; that I had taken out my frustration about Uchi's situation and the display of parent-child affection that followed out on Shun, but I was too stubborn and maybe a little too scared to bring it up.

* * *

This went on for a few days, where I left home early in the morning and returned when I knew Shun wouldn't be there. The guys at school, after bugging me about it, seemed to accept my brooding as a "girl thing" and I was in no mood to tell them off.

I was pulling on my shoes one morning when Chiba came around by the entrance and leaned against the doorway, watching me.

"You and Shun had a fight, didn't you?" he asked.

"None of your business," I said, picking up my school bag.

He laughed. "It's so easy to tell when you guys have fought. You guys act so alike, after all."

"Can you please move?" I asked, ignoring him. I didn't want to hear about Shun right now.

"What, you have to get to school?" he all but scoffed.

Chiba was an okay guy, but we did disagree about things, one of them being my attending school. He thought it was a waste of time for me to even try to graduate, even though I only had a year left.

He rested his arms on my shoulders, uncomfortably close. "There are more fun things to do with your time," he said, giving me a look.

"I'm going to be late," I said, trying to walk past him.

"The other guys in your class don't know about you and us, do they?"

I stopped at his words.

"Of course not," I answered briskly.

"I wonder what they would do if they knew."

I turned to glare at him, but before I could voice any thoughts, Shun spoke from behind me.

"Chiba, stop harassing Kana and let her go to school."

I turned around again and saw him eyeing Chiba sternly.

"I'm going now," I mumbled, but Shun's words stopped me.

"I need to talk to you when you come home," he said. I nodded without looking at him and fled.

* * *

As I neared school, wondering what Shun would even say, someone hopped up next to me.

"Good morning~!" Noda greeted me with a huge grin.

"You sure are cheerful today," I said. "Win the lottery or something?"

"Even better," he grinned. "First period is ENGLISH TODAY!"

I groaned. One of the few things that rivaled his love of photography and his PC, was his huge crush on Fujiyama, the English teacher. In fact, she was the subject of many of his photos, paparazzi style.

"See you in class!" he said with a wave, running towards our classroom so that he could get the "best seat".

Sure enough, when I finally trudged to class, Noda was sitting front and center, face full of anticipation. The rest of the guys were all reading their English text books, reviewing so that if Fujiyama called on them, they would be ready to impress her.

I walked to my seat in the back and sat down, watching all of the guys crowd their desks to the front. There was a great space between my desk and theirs.

The only person sitting near me was Sawada, who always slept during English anyway.

"Jealous?" he asked with a straight face.

"As if," I responded, resting my head against my arms on the desk. Besides, Fujiyama wasn't particularly gorgeous. Honestly, I thought Yankumi had the potential to be prettier if she didn't wear those nerdy glasses all the time. These dumb boys didn't understand that Fujiyama wore skirts that showed off her legs so that they would pay attention. It was clearly working because it was the only class they paid attention in.

The door opened and Noda's face fell when Yankumi walked in.

"What are you doing here?!" he demanded amidst the other guys' groans.

"Fujiyama Sensei doesn't feel well," she answered, surprised by the class outburst.

"Is…is she alright?" he asked.

"I'm sure she'll be fine. I'm temporarily taking over for her, so first period will be math today," Yankumi explained.

"Boring~! Alright guys, scoot back," Minami commanded, and everyone moved their desks away from Yankumi.

"Hey!" she protested, getting frustrated.

I smiled. I'd rather have Yankumi teach anyways. Glancing over, I saw that Sawada thought so too.

* * *

"I'm going to go see Fujiyama Sensei," Noda said at lunch. Minami and Uchi also jumped up. "No! You guys can't come! I'm going to ask her questions about English," he said firmly before walking towards the teacher's lounge.

"That's not fair!" Minami shouted after him, knowing very well that Noda wouldn't be concentrating on English while he was there, but they stayed put anyways.

I wasn't really paying attention to what everyone was talking about until Uchi sat back down next to me and waved a hand in my face.

"Are you okay?"

I blinked at him, until his question finally registered in my head.

"Tired," I said, brushing off his question.

"Not getting enough sleep?" he asked, patting my head.

"I'm fine," I mumbled, wishing that everything really was. I couldn't stop thinking about what would happen after school.

"Stupid Sawatari," Minami grumbled off to the side. "Bothering us about crap like midterms all the time."

I sighed. Another thing to worry about…I had never failed a class before, but there were times when I barely passed. I wanted to maintain somewhat decent grades so that I didn't have to worry about whether I would have enough units to graduate or not. Getting expelled put me on the very edge of having only just enough, because I had missed enough days transferring between schools. I glanced over at Sawada, who apparently had exceptional grades. If only I could be a genius like him...

* * *

After school, the six of us walked through the park on the way home. Noda's attention was captivated by his textbook.

"So so diligent, you are," Uchi teased.

"So are you going to ace the test and capture Shizuka-chan's heart?" Minami joined in.

I snorted. I never understood the appeal of calling a teacher by their first name. It'd be like calling Yankumi…Kumiko. I began to laugh at the thought.

"Haha! Kana's laughing because you have no chance!" Uchi taunted Noda.

"It's true. It's not like I don't have a chance anyways," Noda said pleasantly.

"You should give her a present! Women love presents!" Minami said.

"Leave me alone, guys!" Noda protested, laughing it off.

However, when Minami and Uchi ran forward to try to talk to some girls from a nearby school, Noda lingered behind with a secret smile on his face. He stopped when he saw a girl by the walkway selling jewelry. He picked up a necklace with a small pink charm.

"How much is this?" he asked the girl, who smiled.

"It's 1500 yen*, but I'll sell it to you for 1000 yen," she said.

"Thanks!" he said with a grin as she wrapped it.

"Is it for your girlfriend?" she asked as she handed the package to him.

"Well…she's not my girlfriend," Noda answered, blushing.

I saw Sawada watch this exchange with a smile. I nudged him.

"Is it okay to have him acting like this?" I asked. After all, what could come out of having a crush on a teacher?

"Leave him alone. He'll get over it," Sawada replied. I nodded, trusting his judgment.

"Kana, what do you think? Do you think she'll like it?" Noda asked me earnestly.

I had no clue what Fujiyama liked, but I could only smile at how excited Noda was. "I've seen her wear pink, so probably..."

Noda grinned and clutched the package tightly in his hands.

"Hey, I'm going to go now," I said, glancing at my watch and realizing that I had put it off as long as I could. I began to walk away when Sawada suddenly called my name.

"Is everything okay?" he asked me nonchalantly.

"I'll let you know," I said after a pause. I didn't even know if I  _would_  be okay. What else could I say?

* * *

"I'm home," I said, walking into the place I called home.

"Kana," Shun said, standing in the common room.

I stood my ground. If he was going to be angry, I wanted to be ready.

"I'm not mad," he said, reading my mind. "I just want to talk. Sit."

I reluctantly sat across from him at the table.

"Look, I didn't want you to dye your hair because even though the principal at Shirokin seems like he'll let you do whatever you want, that Sawatari sounds like he has it out for your class. By dyeing your hair and wearing all that jewelry, he's going to start seeing you as one of them. You know that having been expelled twice is already tough on your record. I don't want to see you make it even harder for yourself to graduate, not when you're so close."

I closed my eyes, feeling ashamed. Shun always thought out everything really carefully, and in the end, it always made sense. I always jumped in to things based on how I felt, which didn't always turn out so great.

"But it's not like you to deliberately disobey me like that either," Shun said a little less sternly. "What's going on? I haven't heard you bring up your dad in a long time."

"…Uchi wanted to quit school because he wanted to work to help out his mom," I said finally. "And his mom is always willing to apologize on his behalf…"

"You wondered if you had someone to do those things for you, whether things would be different now, right?" Shun said, more gently than I had ever heard him speak to me. I couldn't speak. Shun knew me too well. "Look kid, we can't change what's happened in the past. But as long as you're focused on your goal, I'll help you get there. No more of these rule-breaking shenanigans, okay? Be tough, Kana."

_Be tough._

It was something Shun said to me a lot, especially recently. I knew that part of being tough would mean not getting carried away in doing my best to fit into Class 3-D. I had to maintain that distance.

"Shun, I want to start working at the café again," I said.

"Are you sure? Of course I appreciate it, but you know the risk, Kana."

"I promised you that once I got settled at my new school, I'd work again," I said stubbornly. If the school caught me, I could get expelled, suspended at least. Students weren't supposed to have jobs without permission. But if I asked for permission, they'd look into where I was working and who I was working with, and I couldn't have that.

"Only if you're sure..."

I nodded.

"Okay…so are we cool?"

"…yeah, we're cool," I answered.

This was the way we ended all of our arguments, because we knew no other way. All we could do was try to understand each other. We were all on the same boat anyways, Shun, Chiba, the other guys and I. It made sense that we'd stick together because we were, to borrow Uchi's words, the people that no one wanted.

Shun was the oldest in our group, at twenty eight years old. Most of the other guys were scattered in the age range between my age and Shun's. There were about twenty five of us, banded together for the sake of wanting to belong somewhere. To us, we were a justified group of similar outcasts in society. The general public, however, labeled us a gang. It didn't matter that we didn't go around picking fights, or that we generally stayed out of trouble as long as no one bothered us. Our situation was unnatural according to society, and the only word they could come up came with a stigma: people who deliberately broke the law and were nothing but nuisance to the rest of them.

In short, people who found out about me would see a gang member. And that was what I couldn't tell my new classmates, no matter how close we became. No matter how much I wanted to belong to 3-D, I didn't and wouldn't completely. No one would understand, and I knew that. But because of all we had been through together already, it was going to a challenge to push them away.

* * *

The next morning, Noda seemed particularly cheerful. I figured he had delivered his present to Fujiyama. During break, he began to upload his most recent paparazzi style pictures he had captured of Fujiyama, and the other began to crowd around his PC, nodding in approval.

"There's something alluring about older women," Uchi sighed. Oh gosh, not this topic  _again._

Kuma looked up, puzzled. "Does that include Yankumi?"

Sawada smirked. "She's definitely excluded." We all snickered.

I saw Yankumi sneak behind Sawada, oblivious to the conversation. She tapped Sawada's shoulder, then stuck her finger out when he turned, poking his cheek.

"Stupid," she laughed. "You fell for it!"

Sawada glared at her before looking away.

"Oh, what's that?!" she said, hopping over to see Noda's pictures. "Wow, they're so well taken!"

"Don't look!" Noda frantically pleaded, but she held his arms back.

"What's there to hide?" she kept saying, as Noda tried to fend her off. "So you like older women, huh?'

I rolled my eyes and stretched, hoping that the day would be over soon.

"Feeling better?" Uchi asked me, and I nodded. Fighting and being nervous around Shun had left me exhausted.

But now that I would start working again, I wondered about how much time I would get to spend with these guys outside of school. It would probably become very limited. For some reason, that thought made me really sad.

* * *

"Hey, it seems that Fujiyama was working as a hostess in a Ginza club," Ochi, the class gossip, announced to the class as he wheeled in on his scooter, "and someone ratted her out to the staff and now Sawatari's pissed off."

The class began to exclaim loudly in surprise. I sat up. I knew I wasn't the only one risking working a job without permission, but Fujiyama? Teachers weren't allowed to have second jobs, and something especially questionable like a hostess could get them in serious trouble.

Then again, it honestly didn't surprise me about Fujiyama Sensei working as a hostess, since she always daydreamed out loud during her English classes about all the exotic locations she wanted to go to. There was no way she could go to all those places on a teacher's salary.

But what did surprise me was Noda's reaction.

He was sitting there with a blank look on his face, for once without his computer, and even though this news should crush him the most out of everyone, he didn't look fazed at all. Instead, he sat there, hunched over.

The class hushed when Yankumi walked into the room, and she headed straight for Noda.

"Did you do it? Did you send those pictures to Vice Principal Sawatari?" she said sternly.

"And if I did, so what?" he responded nonchalantly.

"Why?" she shot back immediately.

"It's the truth, isn't it? She's working as a hostess!" Noda said.

"And so you can do whatever you want?"

"And teachers can do whatever they want?!" he demanded angrily, standing up. "She…she took my present and…threw it in the trash!"

I stared at him. When I thought of how excited he was when he had bought that necklace, I knew that I could only barely begin to understand how much it must have hurt him to see her throw away what represented the entirety of his feelings for her.

"…She deserves what she gets, doesn't she?" Noda said to Yankumi, almost pleadingly as if asking her to acknowledge his pain.

Yankumi suddenly punched him with enough force to knock him down, and he fell to the classroom floor, blood immediately appearing on the corner of his lip. She stood over him, grabbing him by the collar as we all sprang to our feet.  _What the hell?_

"It doesn't give you the right to do what you did!" she shouted at him, before Sawada grabbed her swinging arms to hold her back, asking her to stop. The rest of the class stood up in shock. I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

"You like Fujiyama Sensei, don't you?!" she continued. "Just because she hurt you and everything didn't go as planned, you'll ruin the woman you have feelings for? You're the worst! When she trashed your present, it hurt you inside, didn't it? I bet it did! And to spite her, you rat her out! Did that ease your pain? Did the hurting stop? Because if it did, you have no right to fall in love!" she yelled at him before wrenching her arms from Sawada's grip.

I could see tears appearing in Noda's eyes, but when I reached over to help him up, he pushed my hands away.

"Shut up!" he said and pushed his way out of the classroom. An awkward silence fell upon the class.

"It's true that what he did was the worst, but I also know how he feels," Sawada said to Yankumi, who just stood there.

Without a second thought, I ran after Noda. He ran fast, but I caught up to him when he stopped at the park, breathing heavily.

"Noda," I said, trying to catch my breath at the same time.

He glared at me. "What?"

I could see the pain in his expression, the pain of rejection that I knew all too well.

"…Come with me," I said. He stared at me confusedly. "Just do it," I said, tugging on his arm.

What I was about to do ran a big risk, but I thought that Noda might need it. And maybe I did too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *1500 yen is roughly 15 USD and she sold the necklace to Noda for about 10 USD
> 
> Thank you so much for reading and keeping up with the story so far!
> 
> Let me know what you've liked/disliked so far, and what you're curious about!
> 
> A BIG thank you to Japan_Crazy for being my first kudos & comment! I really appreciate it! ^^


	8. Trying the Impossible

Noda followed me silently until we got to station. I was surprised he had even followed me this far without any questions. Or maybe it was because I didn't say anything to him about what happened that made him follow along. There were a couple of times as we walked that I considered just taking him anywhere else, but I pressed on. I just hoped that we wouldn't run into any police officers who would for sure assume that we were ditching school…which we technically were.

We passed under the station towards the harbor. The waterfront was clear today and there was a nice breeze. Despite this, there were hardly any people around. I couldn't tell Noda, but this was one of my favorite parts of my walk home.

"What are we doing here?" he asked grumpily.

"You'll see," I said.

But as we got further from the station and closer to the bay, Noda began to act nervous.

"You sure about this?" he asked.

I wasn't, but I answered, "Yeah." We turned a couple of corners before we reached our destination.

"What's this?" Noda asked as we stood in front of the small café.

"Come on," I said, pulling him inside.

Shun looked up from the cash register and raised his eyebrow when he saw me. His expression changed to one of suspicion and apprehension when he saw Noda trailing in behind me. I shot Shun a pleading look and he gave me a short nod, though he looked displeased. But it was to be expected.

"Sit here," I said, motioning to an empty seat near the back of the café. Noda sat, looking around. The small café was mostly empty, as it usually was around this time except for the occasional couple or an elderly person stopping by for some coffee. I grabbed a first aid kit and dropped it off on the table.

"You can do it yourself, right?" I asked, and Noda nodded before taking a gauze and wiping the blood off his lip.

I ran quickly to the back and changed into my work clothes, which consisted of a white collared shirt, a black vest, a black skirt and a red apron. I rolled up my sleeves and fixed my collar before stepping back out into the café.

"So what do you want to drink?" I asked, holding out a menu. Noda looked up at me and stared, taking in my uniform.

"Don't you dare laugh," I growled, but he couldn't hold it in. It was nice to see him smiling again.

"Is that really you?" he asked me with a grin, before accepting the menu. "What's good here?" he asked me after scanning over the menu for a minute or two.

"I'd recommend a latte, or maybe a fruit smoothie if you don't drink coffee," I said.

"A latte it is, then," he said with a smile and handed back the menu.

I picked up the first aid kit and put it back before walking behind the counter to begin assembling the ingredients. Shun leaned against the counter, watching me.

"What are you doing here?" he asked calmly.

"My classmate…he needed to get out for a moment," I said nervously, pulling milk from the mini fridge.

He sighed. "We just talked about this. Ditching isn't going to help you graduate."

I stopped what I was doing to look at him. "I know...but...I couldn't just leave him like that."

Shun didn't look convinced but he didn't stop me. I was already here and so was Noda.

"We'll talk about this later," was all he said.

* * *

I sat in the seat across from Noda when Shun told me that he could handle the customers himself.

"Feeling better?" I asked.

Noda was staring out the window, resting his chin on his hand, arm propped up on the table. He glanced over at me, clearly annoyed.

"I wish that stupid teacher would leave me alone," he muttered. By stupid teacher, I knew he meant Yankumi. "I hate her pretty words. They don't mean crap to me."

"…You really did like Fujiyama, though," I said softly. He looked away again, his fists clenched but his eyes mournful.

"I know what I did was low. No one has to tell me that. But when she…when she threw away the necklace…"

He couldn't finish the sentence, so I let the silence sink in. I was thinking about when I had faced a painful rejection like that when Noda cleared his throat.

"Kana, have you ever really liked someone?"

I was startled by his question. "Umm…"

"Or do you have someone right now?"

"No,  _no_ , that's not it," I said quickly. I hadn't realized that Noda might ask me about my own love life. For a second, I wavered between answering him honestly and brushing it off. But Noda hadn't followed me all this way to hear me lie.

"Yes…I have," I said finally.

"Eh, really?" he asked me.

I nodded. "I met him at a time when I thought no one loved me. I would have done anything for him…and in a way, I did."

"…but?" Noda asked. It wasn't in a way that was nosy but just genuinely curious.

I laughed bitterly. "I was so blinded by my feelings for him that I couldn't see that our relationship was becoming toxic. When I finally tried to leave…I lost everything."

At his concerned look, I quickly finished the story. "But I turned out okay because I ended up here."

"But isn't this area…?"

So he  _had_  heard about Shun, or at least the rumors about this part of town. I had guessed as much from the way he acted on the way here.

"You know how each area of this city comes with its own rumors? Don't go  _there_  because people are up to no good. You shouldn't even try owning a business  _here_  because so-and-so gang are completely in control of the block. Even the  _high school_  you go to supposedly determines what kind of person you are," I said, pausing to see if Noda was following. "I don't know what you've heard about this area and the people who run things around here, but I can guess. But this was and is the only place I can go to when I have nowhere else."

Noda silently nodded, trying to process this information.

"Hey, don't tell the others about this place, okay?" I said after a pause.

Noda looked at me, surprised. "Why not?"

"Well…people aren't supposed to know about me working here."

"Then why did you…" he began, but then he stopped. "…aren't you afraid I'll rat you out?"

I stood up. "Guess I'll have to trust you on that one," I said. "Stay as long as you like, but I have to get back to work."

* * *

Noda stayed for a little while longer, and I sometimes caught him watching me and Shun. I had a feeling that even though he knew about Shun, he didn't know what he looked like, so my secret was safe for now. He probably wanted to know how I even began working here, but I was glad he didn't ask.

"I told you it was a bad idea to bring him here. You're risking everything," Shun said to me when Noda left and I told him about what Noda had done. "This isn't even about me. What if one day, you piss him off and he takes a picture of you here and sends it to the school, huh? Then where will you be?"

"…I don't think he'd do that again. This time, he wasn't thinking about the potential consequences of his actions…"

"And neither are you," Shun said sternly.

There was nothing I could say in reply.

Sawada called me later in the day. "Are you still with Noda?"

"No...why?"

"Apparently, the PTA heard about Fujiyama and they stormed into the teacher's lounge, demanding that she get fired."

I guess that even at a school like Shirokin, no parent wanted their child to be taught by a hostess*. Part of me wondered if this was going a lot further than Noda had intended.

* * *

Noda didn't show up to school the next day. The others asked me if I knew where he might be, but I honestly had no clue. They didn't question me about what had happened when we left class the day before, even though I could tell that they were itching to.

Yankumi came into the room. "Fujiyama Sensei is on a one week suspension from teaching class. However, she might get fired."

"What?!" the class chorused in shock. They were honestly that surprised?

"But Sawatari Vice Principal has promised that she will not get fired on one condition."

"What's that?" Minami asked.

Yankumi let out a small laugh. "All of you in this class will have to pass the English midterm that's a week from now with a 30% or higher."

The class immediately erupted into groans of "Impossible!" and "30%?!"

Yankumi's confident smile fell. "What? It's just 30%!" she insisted.

"Yankumi, have you even seen our grades?" Oishi asked her.

"I only get single digit percentages in all my classes!" Gamo said.

"My highest grade ever is 18%!" Chikamatsu told her, almost as if bragging.

"You guys are really that stupid?" Yankumi asked, mostly to herself.

"You just noticed?" Yagyu cut in, and she sighed.

"Please, can't you guys just work really really hard?" Yankumi said pleadingly, hands clasped together.

If it were only a matter of trying hard…English was one of my worst subjects and while I could probably manage a 30%, there were other subjects to study for as well.

"If Fujiyama Sensei does get fired, Noda will find it even harder to come to school and he might drop out altogether," Yankumi continued.

I looked up at her. Now  _that_  was something I hadn't thought about.

"But it's impossible! There's no way we could ALL get above 30%!" Uchi said, clearly frustrated.

"Okay, fine. From today to the day of the test, I'll hold a special English review session after school," Yankumi sighed.

"After school? No way!" was the class's response.

But why would Yankumi actually commit to something like that just to keep one teacher and one student from leaving this school? I thought of the way she punched him yesterday, so hard that he actually bled. Wouldn't it be harder for her if he  _did_  come back? The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like a no-merit situation for Yankumi.

* * *

By the time Yankumi's English review session was about to start, everyone had left class. While the five of us were walking out to the school gate, Kuma suddenly stopped.

"I'm going to attend Yankumi's English thing," he said. "She's helped me out before, so yeah." With that, he turned and began to walk back.

"I guess I'll go too, since we're always causing her trouble and stuff," Minami said, walking after Kuma.

"Oh, please. I guess there's no choice! I owe her one anyways," Uchi said brightly, leaving me and Sawada behind.

I hesitated. Shun would probably give me a little bit of leeway today, since I came to work early yesterday. Yankumi did help us out when Uchi was in trouble. And even though I didn't feel like I owed Fujiyama anything, I would at least try for Noda.

"Might as well get all the help I can get," I sighed, and walked after Uchi. Sawada followed behind me without a word.

"What, you're actually coming too?" Uchi asked me when I caught up to him.

"Yeah, if you pull your pants up," I said, sticking my tongue out at him. "I can see your boxers. Seriously, put that away."

"You're so not cute," Uchi grumbled, pulling me into a headlock as we walked on.

* * *

When we got to the class, we saw Yankumi slouched over a huge stack of books, looking depressed. Sawada tapped her shoulder and stuck his finger out, poking her cheek when she turned.

"Stupid," he said with no expression whatsoever, while the other guys snickered.

"You guys…you came!" she said happily, as if she couldn't care less that she was being made fun of. Sawada picked up one of her flyers.

"Class 3-D aim to get 30% or higher on the English final. Day 1," I read, peering over his shoulder. "Let's Bigin…?"

"Misspell," Sawada said, pointing at "bigin".

"Really?" Yankumi asked.

"B-E-G-I-N, not bigin," he explained.

"Wow Sawada! You're a genius!" she exclaimed.

"I learned that in middle school," he muttered.

"Yankumi, are you sure you can teach us English like this?" Uchi asked worriedly.

"Yeah, you're so unreliable," Minami groaned.

"Come on, let's start!" Kuma said impatiently.

"Yes, let's!" Yankumi said, skirting Uchi and Minami's concerns.

"Oh yeah. Yamaguchi Kumiko Sensei," Uchi started, putting an arm around Minami and Kuma, "We three don't know our cursive, so…"

"Good luck," they said in unison.

Yankumi sighed while I looked on in amusement. Misspell or not, I couldn't believe she had actually managed to put together a packet for the review session in less than a day. If only Noda could see this…

* * *

" _ABCDEFG_!" Minami, Uchi, and Kuma sang loudly as we headed home. They added the occasional " _hey hey hey_ " for effect as well as to mask any letters they had forgotten. I laughed when they stumbled over "LMNOP".

Sawada suddenly stopped and pointed to the riverbank. A familiar figure lay on the grass.

"Noda!" the guys shouted and ran over to him.

"What are you doing here?" Minami asked him.

"Not much," he responded nonchalantly.

"Hey, come back to school. Yankumi's started an English class, and you won't even believe all the stuff she's trying to make us learn!" Kuma said.

"Yeah, it's a pain," Uchi added, laughing along. "Even though we're the only ones that showed up."

Noda showed disinterest until Sawada said, "Fujiyama's possibly getting fired." It was then that Noda sat up in shock. So he hadn't anticipated this happening.

"But she won't if the entire class gets a 30% or higher on the English final," I said as Sawada showed him on of Yankumi's flyers.

"She said it's not just for Fujiyama but for you as well," Sawada explained.

After glancing at it, Noda pushed it away and got up.

"Leave me alone," was all he said before walking away.

We all looked at each other. But what could we do?

* * *

When I parted ways with the guys and finally got to the café, I wasn't surprised to see Noda there, a brooding look on his face.

"Another latte?" I asked him after I changed. He nodded.

I saw Shun give me a look, but I ignored him. Noda wasn't a threat as far as I was concerned.

"Look, you're welcome to come here anytime, but you won't save Fujiyama by just sitting here," I said after handing him his latte.

Noda looked up at me and frowned. "But…" He fell silent.

"I'm guessing that if you don't take the test, Sawatari will automatically give you a 0, which is what he would want," I said. "Even if you don't forgive Fujiyama, you don't want to play into Sawatari's hand, do you?"

"Wait," he said as I began to walk away. "…You don't think it's too late?"

"You never know," I replied with a shrug. "I mean, the class isn't even interested in showing up for Yankumi's review sessions." Honestly, our whole class passing with a 30% would be quite a feat, but who knew? Maybe we'd be able to pull it off with some miracle. But we had to try…

"Why is he back? And why are you rewarding his behavior with lattes?" Shun demanded.

"Shun, you're the one who taught me to focus not on what someone did, but why they did it," I said with all of the courage I could muster. "He feels rejected and ashamed and lost all at once right now."

When Shun stared at me, speechless, I was tempted to see how far I could take this.

"See, I  _do_  listen to what you lecture me about," I said cheekily.

"Get back to work," he finally growled, swatting my head with a towel. "I really do hope you know what you're doing," I heard him mutter under his breath.

I hoped so too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *hostess: a woman who acts as a companion to the (usually) male client who pays for her company. This is usually restricted to a particular venue, called a kyabakura or a hostess bar, but some hostesses are known to keep high-paying clients happy by offering them services outside of their workplace. There's usually a negative stigma surrounding this whole business, even though it technically isn't prostitution. Sorry I didn't explain this in the last chapter.
> 
> Thank you so so much for following my story.
> 
> One of the few things I regret about the way that I'm writing this is that I can't include all the wise gems that Yankumi's grandpa tells her as Yankumi struggles with the different situations her students are in. In this particular episode, he says,
> 
> "People (in difficult situations) are only about to get back on their feet when they meet people they can trust".
> 
> Even if Yankumi's grandpa doesn't appear for a while or as often in this story, I hope I can include the sentiments of all the wise things he imparts on Yankumi and her students.
> 
> Thank you again for reading! ^^ As always, I would love to hear your thoughts/questions.


	9. Miracle

When Noda didn't show up to school the next day, I was disappointed. I thought for sure that he had considered trying to change things.

But during the passing period between math and English, I caught a glimpse of Noda as I came out of the bathroom.

"Please attend Yankumi's review session so Fujiyama Sensei won't be fired," he was saying, head bowed to some of our classmates, who looked at each other.

"Alright," they agreed after a pause.

"Really?!" The joy in Noda's voice was unmistakable.

"Noda," I said, stepping into view.

"Ah, Kana…" he said, seeming a little embarrassed. "Where are the other guys right now?"

"Probably on the roof*," I said.

He followed me up there, looking a little apprehensive.

"Oi Kana, what took so long?" Minami asked me.

"Stupid! You don't ask why a girl took so long in the bathroom!" Uchi scolded him.

I rolled my eyes. "I ran into someone that I thought you guys might want to see," I said.

Noda walked out onto the roof, and the guys all sat up.

"Noda!" they all exclaimed.

"Hey," he said quietly. He suddenly stepped forward and bowed his head. "I'm sorry for the way that I've been acting! Even if you're mad at me, please attend the review sessions for Fujiyama Sensei!"

"We're not mad at you!" Kuma said. "We were just worried!"

"Yeah, and besides, we need those lessons more than you do," Uchi said with a grin.

"We missed you!" Minami said, punching him in the shoulder.

"…Thanks guys," he said sheepishly.

"Now it's just whether we can get the rest of the class to the review sessions," Sawada said.

Noda nodded. "I asked some of the guys, and they said yes. But others seemed a little bit more reluctant."

"Leave it to me," Sawada said.

* * *

Noda skipped class the rest of the day, saying he wanted to study English some more before the review session. We all knew that it was actually because he wasn't quite ready to face the class and Yankumi yet, but we didn't say anything.

"Hey guys," Sawada said suddenly at the end of our last period, and the class fell silent. "I know that it might not seem possible for us to achieve 30% on our English final, but think about Noda. He is our friend, and we should make sure that he doesn't quit school. Yankumi's doing her best already, so all we need is for you guys all to participate in her after school English sessions until the test. That's all we ask." He stood and bowed his head.

"Please!" Minami, Kuma, and Uchi and I said, also standing and bowing to their classmates.

The other guys began to murmer among themselves, until Uesugi spoke up.

"Man, first Noda, and now you guys? How can we say no to that?"

The class nodded along, smiling.

"We'll do it then. Noda is our classmate, after all," Oishi said.

"Besides, whose class would we look forward to if Shizuka-chan is fired?" Shimazu added.

Minami shouted, "You guys are the best!"

I texted Noda the good news and asked him to come quickly, since the review session would begin shortly.

When Yankumi walked in, carrying a huge stack of papers and books, she looked amazed.

"You're late! Let's hurry up and get started, Yankumi!" Uchi called out.

"You guys…" she exclaimed. "All of you are here?"

"We'll do what we need to if it's for a friend."

"It's not bad to study once in a while."

"Besides, how could we say no to bowed heads?"

Yankumi stared at us in surprise. "Who bowed their heads to you?"

"It's obvious, isn't it?" Sawada said and the rest nodded. I gestured toward the door.

Yankumi looked over to the entrance of the classroom. "Noda…"

He walked up to her slowly, biting his lip. "Sorry," he mumbled. She beamed and began to ruffle his hair, dropping all of her materials.

"Stop it!" he laughed as he struggled to get away. The class cheered and clapped for him as he made his way to his seat.

"Alright, guys, let's begin the review session!" Yankumi said earnestly. "For Fujiyama Sensei, OH!" she shouted, pumping her fist in the air.

"Oh…?" the class mumbled.

"That's weak! Again, OH!" she repeated with enthusiasm.

"OH!" the guys roared.

With the class pumped up, Yankumi began a crash course in High School English.

"A," she said, pointing.

"A," the class repeated, tracing letters in the air.

"B," she continued.

"B!"

Minami kept drawing humongous letters in the air, and it was more fun to watch him than listen to Yankumi, but I willed myself to try.

"Hey, what about your job?" Noda asked me discreetly when the other guys weren't paying attention.

"I explained about the class to my boss, and he's letting me come in later for this entire week," I said.

Noda nodded. "Thanks," he mumbled.

"I'm glad you're here." I replied with a smile.

Our conversation was cut short when two of our classmates, Oda and Gamo began to fight about whose answer was correct and Yankumi had to go break it up. I laughed, because no one would believe that our class was fighting about test answers.

* * *

For the next week, we all studied harder than any of us probably ever had. Everywhere we went, we had an English book, shocking the other classes. The class continued to get into arguments over English, but that slowly changed to an attitude of wanting to help each other out instead of fighting about it.

Sawada had a knack for English, so he helped everyone out, including Yankumi, who didn't quite know everything about the language. But who could blame her? She was a math teacher.

There were even several times that Yankumi had to smack people on the head when they fell asleep during the review sessions. In any other circumstance, they would have grabbed her and punched the crap out of her in fury, but because this was for a common goal, they endured.

I felt like my brain was turning into English-flavored mush. Even during lunch, the guys would constantly quiz each other about English grammar and vocabulary. But there was nothing else to be done, because Kuma began his review of English by using a children's English book, meaning he was levels below high school English.

It was good that he absorbed information quickly because he went from asking Sawada "What does 'dog' mean?" to "Where would this preposition go in this sentence?" by the end of the week.

At home, I would often fall asleep on top of my English textbook. I couldn't count the number of times I woke up to one of the guys' jackets or Shun's blanket on my shoulders. The guys did their best to give me a quiet place to study. Even Chiba seemed to refrain from making fun of me for studying so hard, so I was sure that Shun had said something to him and I was grateful.

For me, grammar was the trickiest. Why did English have to be so different than Japanese?

When Yankumi asked things like "If this sentence is in third person with a singular noun in the present tense, what should the verb be?" my instinct was to hurl my book at her head. I for sure knew that I was never going to use English in my future, so why did it matter if I knew the difference between past and present tense for singular nouns?

But I had to admit that when the class would enthusiastically congratulated each other when they got the answer right to a question, I had to smile.

"What's the answer, Noda?" Yankumi asked.

"FOR!" he shouted, and got it right. The class cheered.

Kawashima, the school nurse, even made us huge rice balls for a snack on the final review day. They were gone in an instant.

"For Shizuka-chan, let's do this!" Noda shouted, standing on his chair and holding up his pencil and rice ball.

"OH!" the class shouted in response.

I glanced up and saw that Fujiyama watching our class from the window, an unreadable expression on her face. Her job relied on us now, and all she could do was trust us. I wasn't even sure we would be able to deliver the results she wanted, but we had to try…

* * *

The day of the test came almost too quickly.

"Do you feel ready?" Shun asked me as I was about to leave for school.

"Even if I don't, I have to be," I said.

"Hey, no matter what happens, you worked really really hard, kid," Shun assured me.

"I honestly wouldn't have gotten this far without Yankumi," I admitted. "She had handwritten packets for us every single day to study off of, and she even customized some of the material with each of our names. So even more than saving Fujiyama, I really don't want to let Yankumi down."

"Well no matter what happens, you've earned the day off," Shun said. "Just don't go too crazy after school."

"Deal," I said. "Thanks Shunnie!"

I ran off before he could smack me on the head.

* * *

When I got to class, everyone was studying like crazy. I pulled out my notes and began to review as well.

"Alright, put away your books! Pass the test face down," Sawatari demanded as he walked into the room.

"Everyone calm down," Yankumi said. "Read the questions carefully and it'll make a difference."

"You have one hour," Sawatari said. "Begin."

I stared at the test. It didn't look too difficult, since Sawatari wrote the test, but tests are tests, and I always clammed up. I sighed and picked up my pencil.

The grammar questions continued to stumped me, but just as I was about to give up, I would remember something that Yankumi had said.

Surprisingly, I finished the test in a little less than an hour. The rest of the class kept writing, but I saw Sawada sitting there looking bored, indicating that he had been done for a while. Our eyes met. Suddenly, 30% seemed possible.

"Time!" Sawatari shouted at the end of the hour. "Put down your pencils."

The class passed up the tests and began to murmur loudly amongst themselves.

We waited in nervous silence as he walked out with our tests. Once Fujiyama graded our tests, we would know our results.

As a class, we had decided to write encouraging messages to her on our tests, such as "Don't give up on us! Don't leave!", "I worked really hard for you, so stay!", and "This test grade is for you!"

I wasn't sure what to write, since I had never really talked to her. I finally decided on "The guys will be really sad if you leave, and I'll have to deal with them then, so you better stay."

* * *

When Fujiyama came back, I could see the traces of tears on her face. So our messages had been read…now it was up to our grades.

"When I call your name, please get you test," she said. Our class had never been this quiet.

Matsudaira was the first to walk up and receive his test. He glanced at it and then whooped.

"It's a 37%!"

Hazama also got a 37. Slowly, as each student went up and got something higher than 30%, the class loosened up. Gamo even began to dance as the class cheered.

"Isn't this awesome? Isn't it?" Uchi said, holding his test high above his head.

"Yay!" Minami said, putting an arm around a bewildered and slightly disappointed Sawatari.

"I got a 60%!" Noda shouted happily. Everyone clapped and cheered.

"Wow! Sawada got a hundred!" Minami shouted and the class oohed. Sawada looked like he had expected no less.

"Nakajima Kana."

I walked up and received my test. 75%. Relief and amazement flooded me. I had never gotten an English grade that high.

"That's awesome Kana!" Uchi said to me, but his smile faltered when I only nodded. I was exhausted, from working late shifts and studying late and taking the test.

"Kumai-kun," Fujiyama said.

We all waited in deafening silence as Kuma walked up and looked at his test. He seemed to be frozen until Sawatari walked over, a grin spreading across his face.

"29%!" he announced. What…

"I'm sorry," Kuma said, devastated. The class could only sit in silence. Minami and Uchi clapped Kuma on the back encouragingly, but nothing could be done.

"Promises are promises. Fujiyama Sensei will have to quit," Sawatari said.

"I understand," she said sadly. It was the first time I had seen her look so upset.

"Shall we leave?" Sawatari suggested heading for the door.

Noda stood up abruptly, almost knocking over his desk. "I did it!" Noda shouted, nearly in tears. "I sent you the picture! Please, please don't fire her. If she's fired, how on earth can I take responsibility?"

"You're the one who did it?" Sawatari asked with a grin.

Washio, another teacher who very much sucked up to Sawatari, said, "We need to punish Noda for this too, don't we?"

I clenched my fists. They wanted this to happen. They wanted both of them punished and gone.

"Quit messing around!" Uchi shouted angrily, knocking over a desk.

"I can't accept it either!" Kawashima vouched for us.

"Yeah!" the class shouted in protest.

"I'm sorry!" Noda said to Fujiyama, bowing, but she shook her head, as if she really understood why he had done it. She looked on the verge of tears herself.

"We don't need teachers or students who cause problems!" Sawatari shouted over the class.

I stormed to the front, trying to get to Sawatari. I didn't work this hard so that Sawatari could just throw two "problematic" people aside.

"Everyone makes mistakes!" Yankumi suddenly shouted, and the class suddenly became quiet again. "Even you, Sawatari Vice Principal."

"Me?" he asked, as if the notion was crazy. "Like what?"

"Like when you blamed Kuma for taking the money that you lost!"

He didn't respond. The air was so thick with tension that I held my breath.

Yankumi continued. "But Noda recognized his mistake and is now trying to change things! Fujiyama Sensei also knows that what she did was wrong. Are you trying to prevent people from bettering themselves without giving them a second chance? Fujiyama Sensei, what do you think? These guys worked so hard for you. Do you really want things to end like this?"

At her silence, Yankumi shouted, "I'm asking you what you think!"

All of us jumped a little.

Fujiyama took a breath and began to speak slowly. "I didn't have any dreams or high hopes about being a teacher. But now…today, I realized for the first time that I do want to continue being a teacher." She held her head up confidently. "I want to continue!"

"Either way, a promise is a promise!" Sawatari said stubbornly.

It looked as if Yankumi was about to explode in fury when "I think the answer to question 4 can be A or E," a voice said. We all turned to see the principal looking over Kuma's test. We all crowded around to check it.

"Uh, I don't know," Yankumi said.

"Yes, it could be A or E," Fujiyama confirmed.

"Which means Kyoutou made a mistake when making the test!" Kawashima said.

"Which means he gets to extra points so…31%!" Yankumi said.

Kuma had been sitting there, depressed, but his face broke into a smile. "YES!" he shouted, and the class erupted in cheers of approval.

"So this means Fujiyama Sensei can carry on as normal," the principal stated with a smile. I looked at him curiously, wondering if he had been on our side the entire time.

"A promise is a promise, right?" Yankumi said, nudging Sawatari, who looked stunned at the turn of events. "Don't worry, everyone makes mistakes." Sawatari ran out of the classroom, completely defeated.

"Fujiyama Sensei can STAY!" Noda shouted, throwing his test in the air. The others followed suit. I was surprised when I looked over and saw Sawada smile genuinely as he watched the class celebrate. It was a nice smile, not the arrogant smirk he usually wore.

But I was even more amazed with the class. They had persevered so much, and now they got what they wanted. For most of the class, it was the highest grade they had ever received in their high school career.

If they could try really hard and achieve things, could I do it too? Was graduating actually achievable for me?

But there was a difference. Working hard to make Fujiyama stay was a combined class effort. What I had to do, I had to do myself.

* * *

"Kana, are you okay?" Uchi asked me as I was lost in my thoughts. I didn't even realize that most of the class had already left.

"Yeah…I'm just…worn out, I guess," I said. "From studying too much," I added when he looked at me worriedly. I couldn't tell him about my job…or anything else.

"Well now you don't have to study!" he said. "Do you want to hang out now?"

"OOOHHH!" Minami said, popping out of nowhere. "Uchi asked Kana out!"

"Shut up! It's not like that," Uchi growled.

I nodded. "Just for today," I said.

"Really?!" he exclaimed.

"Why are you so surprised?" I asked before I could stop myself. I cringed, knowing the answer.

"Because you hardly go out with us anymore," Uchi said. I looked away. I probably wouldn't be able to, from now on.

Luckily, Noda spoke up, capturing the guys' attentions.

"I'm going to ask Fujiyama Sensei out on a date if I get 80% on higher on the final!" Noda announced, and Uchi, Kuma, and Minami went with him to see if Fujiyama would agree. 80% seemed a little extreme…

I slowly packed up my stuff and stood up to leave. Sawada was standing by the door, as if waiting for me. We walked out in silence.

"You know, Uchi's worried about you," Sawada said once we got outside.

"Don't you start," I said, slinging my bag over my shoulder.

"What's up?" he asked me.

I shook my head slowly. "Nothing, I promise," I said softly. Sawada just looked at me.

We suddenly heard a loud ringtone nearby, interrupting the conversation. Sawada picked up a small white cell phone from the ground.

"Whose is this?" he muttered. I shrugged, not recognizing it. Sawada flipped open the phone and pushed the talk button.

"Ojou*? Ojou, it's Tetsu. Ojou?" we heard.

Sawada and I stared at each other. Ojou?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *the roof: Japanese high schools usually have a flat roof and they're basically just large open spaces. Some schools allow students up there and others don't.  
> *Ojou: literally means "queen" or "princess", but it can also be a title for a noblewoman in a high position
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! It really does mean a lot to me.
> 
> \- Reisa


	10. Yankumi's Secret

Sawada arranged to bring the phone later that night after the English midterm celebration.

But even as we caught up with the others, I could tell that it was on his mind. Who would leave their phone on our school grounds and would be referred to as Ojou?

Noda would not shut up about the fact that Fujiyama had agreed to his crazy request for a date if he passed the final with an 80% or higher. As if influenced by this, the other guys would not shut up about girls in general.

And they wondered why I didn't want to hang out with them? It was almost as bad as the girls who had never shut up about boys at my last school.

We went to a local family restaurant first and ordered dessert. Some of the others from 3-D joined us so a large group of us were making a ruckus in the back of the restaurant, probably to the chagrin of the other customers. But it didn't matter. The celebratory attitude of the guys was contagious, and I found myself having fun, despite my earlier reservations.

Uchi stole a bite of my parfait before I could stop him.

"Hey!" I protested, trying to shield it from him.

"You're so selfish!" he whined.

"Fine, give me some of yours," I demanded.

He immediately refused and I began to push against him to try to get a bite of his parfait. The rest of the guys began to cheer me on as I nearly wrestled Uchi out of the booth.

I finally claimed my bite, but not until Minami pointed out that I was practically sitting on Uchi's lap.

"You really have no shame," Minami laughed as I immediately got off.

Uchi's face was flushed and I tried to play it off like nothing happened.

"He took a bite of my parfait. It's only fair to take one back," I retorted.

But when I snuck off to the bathroom at the earliest opportunity, I found myself staring at my reflection in the mirror after I had splashed some water on my face.

Minami's words burned in my mind. I knew what Minami had left off on his sentence. I really did have no shame,  _for a girl_. And it was true, but I felt slightly sick. Of course, part of the reason that I couldn't act "lady-like" naturally was because I lived with guys and I went to an all boys' school. But the other reason…

"Kana," Kuma's voice came from behind the bathroom door. "just letting you know that we're thinking about leaving soon."

I pulled the door open and smiled at him. "Thanks Kuma."

He beamed. From the moment he realized that he hadn't failed the entire class and Fujiyama, it was as if an enormous weight had been lifted off of his shoulders. Kuma was one of the sweetest guys ever, though I would never tell him that to his face. I made a mental note to always remember that.

* * *

We all ended up hanging out at a nearby arcade next, playing some random games and trying to win prizes.

I didn't come to arcades often, as I didn't really have a desire to spend my money on these kinds of things. A batting center, maybe, but not these kinds of games. But as I wandered through the arcade, a particular claw vending machine caught my eye. It was the type that instead of stuffed animals, had more expensive products in boxes in them.

Among the prizes was a slim silver and light blue watch. Something about it made me stop and stare. Ever since I started getting into fights, I had stopped wearing watches, and had never really wanted to, but that particular watch seemed to be both simple and elegant and  _necessary_.

"Those machines are rigged," I heard a voice say and I tore my eyes away from the watch to look at Sawada, who stood beside me. "The watch might be worth way more than what you pay for the chance to play, but it's nearly impossible for the claw to pick up a box like that."

"It's…it's not like I wanted it really," I said, looking away. I was embarrassed that I had been caught staring at it.

"You do have a girly side after all," was all he said as he walked on. It seemed like a nonchalant comment coming from Sawada, but a part of me wondered if he had said to make up for what Minami said earlier, about me having no shame.

My thoughts were interrupted by Uchi, who ran up to us to say, "Hey, we decided to go to karaoke next!"

"I have to go home," I said immediately. There was no way in hell I was going to sing.

"I have to pass too," Sawada said, just as Uchi began to protest. "I have to do something tonight."

"Do you have to go?" Uchi asked both of us.

I nodded and cringed internally as I said, "I have a curfew you know…"

He couldn't argue with that.

"Are you going to deliver the phone now?" I asked Sawada once we were outside and he nodded.

"…want to come?" he asked. "I know you just wanted to escape karaoke."

I didn't know how he knew but I had nothing better to do. Shun had given me the entire day off, and I didn't want to go back just yet. "Why not," I said.

* * *

But I soon came to regret it as we wandered deeper into the hills north of the town. Everything seemed darker, and we didn't even know if we were going the right way. Sawada kept referring to a piece of paper on which he had jotted down notes on how to get to their home.

"Who even lives up here?" I wondered out loud.

"Remind me why we're even delivering the phone?" Sawada muttered as we walked through the streets.

"You're the one agreed," I pointed out. He rolled his eyes at me.

"Why did you come anyways?" he asked me.

"Come on, aren't you curious to see who this "Ojou" is. I mean, who goes around being called "Ojou"?

"Don't be too excited. It might be a Ginza hostess or something."

"But the only hostess at our school was Fujiyama and she was definitely not good enough to be 'Ojou'…unless there's another one!" I said.

Before Sawada could answer, we came to a stop in front of the gates of a large traditional-style house. I stared up at the grand architecture and shuddered slightly. It gave off a formidable vibe.

The phone rang once more and Sawada picked up.

"We're in front of your house now," Sawada answered and hung up. "Well…here we go," he said and began to walk through the gates.

He suddenly came to a stop and I almost crashed into him.

"Watch where you're…" I trailed off when I saw what had made him stop. The nameplate by the door read Oeda Household.

"Oeda…"

The Oeda Household was a clan in the yakuza* that had been in this town for several generations, according to rumors. I knew that they existed, but I had never come in contact with anyone that was part of the yakuza in my life and I didn't plan to.

Just as I was about to turn to Sawada and ask to leave, he looked down at the cell phone and examined it. When he turned it over, a small purikura* sticker of an all too familiar face smiled up at us. I gripped my school bag tighter in shock.

"Yankumi?" he muttered.

Two men stumbled out of the doorway to greet us. We stared at them.

"Thank you so much," the skinny one said bowing, who I guessed was Tetsu.

"Ah, aren't they Ojou's students?" the other, a shorter bigger bald man, asked maybe-Tetsu, who slapped him on the head.

"Stupid!" maybe-Tetsu scolded. They looked over at us and stiffened when they saw our stares.

"Ojou?" Sawada asked. In his hand, Yankumi's picture smiled at us hauntingly.

The two led us inside, though I noticed maybe-Tetsu's reluctance. I was every bit as reluctant too, but there was no turning back now. I couldn't think of a good enough excuse. Baldy insisted that we couldn't leave without a proper repayment of our good deed. The interior of the roomy house was no less traditional than its exterior, and I would have marveled at its design were it not for our situation at hand. We were seated at a low table on a tatami floor and were told to wait there.

Sawada kept glancing at me, as if to make sure he wasn't dreaming. As for me, I was furious at myself for taking up Sawada's offer to come here. I'd rather face Shun's temper any day than the yakuza.

Just leave as little of an impression as possible and get out, I kept telling myself. I found my palms already clammy from sweating so hard.

But then again, what was with this whole deal with Yankumi?

We both kept shifting in our seats, uncomfortable from kneeling seiza-style.

The two came back, bringing two other older men with them. I learned that the skinny one was indeed Tetsu, and Baldy's name was Minoru.

"We really don't know how to repay you for delivering the phone all the way here," the man that introduced himself as Wakamatsu said. The other, Makoto, sat beside him and nodded. Tetsu stood nervously behind them.

"No need," Sawada and I replied quickly.

"Here it is!" Minoru said, bringing a package. I recognized it as bottles of wine.

"Sorry it's not much, but this is our gratitude," Wakamatsu said, holding it out to us.

I glanced at Sawada.  _What do we do?_  What if we refused it and they cut out our tongues or something?

"No thank you," Sawada said. "We are, after all, minors."

They blinked at us, and then,

"Minoru!" Wakamatsu shouted. "How can we give this to them?!"

I jumped a little in my seat. I was surprised that Sawada was so blunt.

"Um," Sawada spoke up, surprising all of us.

"Yeah?" all four men asked immediately.

"Who's the person on the cell phone purikura?"

"Oh, it's a distant relative of an acquaintance," Tetsu responded after a pause. "Yeah, she left it here."

"We've never even met her," Makoto added.

"But didn't you say earlier…something about Ojou's students?" I asked, then immediately regretted it.  _Why are you asking the yakuza questions?!_  But seriously, this was so weird.

Instead of getting angry, though, they gave us panicked looks until Tetsu, once again, spoke up and said, "You must have misheard us!"

"Let it go," we heard a voice say.

I turned toward the speaker and couldn't help staring. An elderly gentleman, wearing a traditional kimono, walked into the room. The other men bowed, calling him "Boss", and made room for him to sit in front of us. This man, this was the leader of the Oeda Household.

"Let's not tell foolish lies. These students have already figured it out for themselves," he said, gesturing towards us. He sat in front of us and we straightened up, knowing that we were in front of an important and dangerous man.

"Simply as the man before you, I have a favor to ask. Kumiko is my granddaughter, which makes her the 4th generation heir of this clan. Like her father, she has chosen to become a school teacher, and she gives it her all every day. I am not going to forbid you from telling of her background to anyone. However, if you see Kumiko as a worthy teacher, I ask you to keep this information within yourselves. I believe that if her background becomes public knowledge, it has the potential to get her fired," he explained to us. He bowed deeply, as the other men followed suit.

Sawada and I politely bowed back, speechless.

* * *

"Wow," was all I could say after we had walked a ways away from Yankumi's house.

"Yeah," Sawada said. There really wasn't any way to express what we had just learned. Yankumi… _yakuza?_

"At least we know where she learned to fight," I remarked. I knew that no dorky teacher like her could ever have those skills unless she had trained somewhere, and this clarified everything.

"…I don't know about you, but I'm thinking about keeping her secret," he said.

I thought about it for a minute before nodding. "Yeah, it'd be pretty boring if she got fired," I said.

"Yeah."

"Seriously though, out of all the teachers to have a secret like that, it's Yankumi?"

"…I think we all have secrets we'd rather not have others find out," Sawada said. I turned to look at him. "You have one too, don't you?"

I looked away. Why did he always seem to be able to see right through me?

"It's okay. It's not like I want to know," he said. "But if you want Uchi and the others to stop worrying, you have to be a better at hiding the fact that you're hiding something."

"Fine," I said. "…okay, see you tomorrow," I added abruptly, seeing a familiar landmark. We were back in the part of town that I knew and I was not willing to continue this conversation.

After I walked away from him, I realized that I had just admitted to him that I was hiding something from them. He was right. If I really wanted to guard my secret, I need to be better about it. But why was he helping me lie to the others? I thought about what he had said. By "we all having secrets", did that include himself?

* * *

The moment I set foot in the house, lost in my thoughts, I felt an arm grab me and pin me to the wall. Shun. My back hit the hard rough surface with an agonizing thud.

"Where were you?!" he shouted, hands fisting my collar.

I stared at him. He seemed…a different kind of angry.

"I…I was hanging out…with Sawada…I'm sorry, it got late…"

"Did anything happen? Why didn't you pick up your phone?"

I couldn't tell him that I had been in no position to check my phone because I had been visiting the Yakuza.

"No, nothing happened," I said finally. "I just didn't check my phone is all…"

His grip loosened and he turned away from me.

"Why? Did something happen?" I demanded.

"Some stupid kids thought it'd be funny to go around with metal sticks and bang up random people with them. It's happened more than once already," he explained gruffly without looking at me. "Thought you got caught up in their game or something. I'm having Chiba check it out, to see who they are and stuff."

I didn't know what to say. Was he worried about me? Sure, we all cared about each other. But not getting a lot of affection growing up, each of us didn't know how to express it, if this could even be called affection.

"I'll be careful," I promised.

He turned and I saw that his eyes had softened. He hit me gently on the head.

"Remember that you're a girl, okay? I know you're tough, but don't forget that."

"Okay," I said quietly. Shun seemed surprised. When he would remind me that I was a girl, even if he was just teasing, I would usually fight back. But he didn't push it this time.

"How was your test?" he asked me.

I had completely forgotten about it, after all the stuff with Yankumi and all. "Oh…we all passed."

"Really," Shun said. "That's pretty amazing."

"Yeah," I said. "Yeah it is."

I went to my room and luckily didn't see anyone on the way.

Minami's comment about me having no shame and Shun's reminder that I was indeed a girl made me feel confused. Because of the way that I acted, the guys would often forget that I was a girl, but as a girl, I needed to be aware that no matter how tough and non-girly I acted, it didn't change the fact that I could be targeted for certain things simply because of my gender. How would I reconcile those two ideas?

I realized suddenly that Yankumi must have gone through something like this. The guys in her clan were all older, so she must have had some sort of "protection" growing up; yet she also knew how to fight. And if she did end up quitting teaching to take up her position as the heir, she would have to convince the male-dominant Yakuza that she was worthy.

But there was no way I would talk to Yankumi about this. To do that, I would have to reveal my secret and the fact I knew hers. And that wasn't about to happen, not if I could help it.

* * *

The next morning, I met up with the guys in front of school. Sawada nodded at me, which was surprising because he usually didn't acknowledge me.

Minami had his arms wide open at a group of girls.

"What are you doing?" Uchi asked.

"Ah~ Momoyuri's girls are the best!" Minami shouted in their direction.

"But, they all act like goody two shoes so they're boring," Uchi said. I nodded in agreement.

"That was my school, remember?" I said.

By this time, the girls had all turned, murmured "Shirokin" to each other, and began to run.

"AH! They all saw our faces and are running away!" Noda said, panicking and discouraged.

"We don't need you!" Uchi shouted at the fleeing girls in a childish voice. I began to laugh.

"But there was this one cute girl, right Shin?" Minami said, turning to Sawada.

"Not interested," Sawada said.

"You know, I've been meaning to ask…are you normal?" Minami said to him.

"Ohayo!" Yankumi hollered, jumping in front of us before Sawada could answer. "Isn't it a wonderful day?"

Sawada stared at her, as I did likewise.  _This_  was the 4rd generation heir of the Oeda clan?

"Huh? Why are you staring at me?" Yankumi asked him, blushing. "Oh, don't tell me you-"

"Don't even think about it," he cut in.

"Say, Yankumi, don't you have a teacher's meeting before school?" Minami asked.

"AHH! I forgot! Don't be late to class guys!" she shouted before taking off.

"Never changes, does she?" Noda remarked, laughing.

I just looked away. It was too hard to believe. Yankumi as the next Oeda leader? What a joke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *purikura: shortened version of "print club", which is just supposed to be a photo booth where you take pictures and you can draw on it and print it out  
> *yakuza: the Japanese mafia
> 
> Hello! Thanks for reading my story.
> 
> So I've been really thinking about this, and maybe it's something that would have been glossed over completely if I hadn't mentioned it, but I've been trying to figure out the appropriate timeline for this story.
> 
> Each season of Gokusen takes place over the course of 3 months, even if Yankumi ends up teaching the entire year. But I feel weird about having all the events of the drama take place over the first 3 months of her teaching (so roughly April to July) and then having this huge gap and then the graduation part.
> 
> So I've decided to instead fill the story with extra "episodes" about 3-D's shenanigans and have the events of the drama span the entire school year.
> 
> I know it's hard to imagine when it hasn't been written out like that yet, but let me know what you think.
> 
> And hurray! Yankumi's Grandpa appears!!! ^^
> 
> I really appreciate each and every one of you! Thank you for your support!
> 
> Happy (early) Veteran's Day!
> 
> \- Reisa


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is rated T but slightly mature themes will trickle in and out of the story. Nothing will be explicit, but I definitely don't want to shock or offend anyone. Thank you for understanding.

We all piled into class arrived just as homeroom was starting, only to see Oda and Ochi arguing.

"Shut up!"

"You're always like this!"

"Leave me alone!"

"Wanna fight?!"

Ochi punched Oda, causing him to crash into some desks.

"Fight!" Noda shouted excitedly, and the class became an uproar as desks were cleared to create a makeshift arena.

I sat on top of one of the desks, eyeing this "fight" with annoyance. Yankumi would walk in at any moment and we would get in trouble. Then again, this was just harmless fun.

"Someone keep an eye out for teachers!" Uchi instructed, trying to cover our bases. The guy next to him nudged him. "What? You have a problem with that?" Uchi snapped.

"No…it's just…she's already here," the guy said.

We all looked over and saw Yankumi kneeling by the fallen twin, egging him on to stand up and fight back. We all stared at her, the room becoming silent.

"What?" she asked, bewildered.

"Why aren't you stopping us?" Minami asked.

"It's just one-on-one fight, right? It's not a  _sashigoro_ ," she said.

"What's that?" Kuma asked.

"You know, a fight with knives and stuff," Yankumi declared. "Don't you guys know that?"

"Most people don't know that," Noda said.

As Yankumi looked stuck, Sawada muttered "baka" under his breath. Now that we knew about her background, we saw that she was failing miserably at hiding it.

"Hey! I've never seen such a disorganized homeroom in my life!" Sawatari Kyoutou shouted, suddenly appearing in the doorway. "Where's Yamaguchi Sensei?"

I turned and saw that Yankumi had hidden behind Kuma, who was the biggest guy in the class. She put a finger to her lips when she saw me looking, but I just rolled my eyes. I hoped she wasn't like this during actual yakuza confrontations…

"Kumai…what are you hiding?" Sawatari asked, observing the strange way Kuma was standing.

"Nothing!" Kuma insisted, but Sawatari was smart.

"Yamaguchi Sensei!" he shouted, and she stepped out meekly. She looked around the class.

"Bad class! Get to work!" she said.

He chewed her out for a while, which was the usual, before he said, "Don't forget about what we talked about at the meeting," and left.

"What did you talk about at the meeting?" Minami asked curiously.

"You know how that random group is going around beating up people with metal sticks?" she asked us.

I sat up. This is what Shun was talking about.

"Oh yeah. I heard my dad talking about it," Noda said.

"Well, because of that, the teachers now have to patrol the _shotengai_  at night and I got stuck with the first shift…"

"Whaaat? Now we can't go to the arcade tonight," Shimazu grumbled.

"And what's worse, I bet all of the teachers are suspecting us of doing it…" Minami pointed out.

"No, no they aren't," Yankumi insisted weakly. Of course they were. It's what they did. "Anyway, I believe that you guys don't have anything to do with it… **AH!**  I wasn't supposed to tell you about the patrolling! They'll think I gave you a heads up!  _Please_  keep it a secret that you know!"

Her clumsiness was just too much to keep up with. This _yakuza_   _heiress_  was asking us to keep secrets. I put my head down, feeling a headache coming on.

* * *

Because of the whole thing with Yankumi the night before plus the midterm, I hadn't slept as much as I wanted, so I couldn't wait to go take a nap on the roof. It was the one good thing about midterms – we would get a nice fifteen minute break in the morning before classes commenced again.

Luckily the midterm today hadn't been too difficult. The guys seemed to have been too caught up celebrating yesterday about the English one to remember that there were other subjects to study for. But today's was history, and it was the one subject I actually enjoyed. Ando was also lazy and so his tests were pretty much exactly like the review. The rest of our midterms were next week, so we didn't have to worry about them until then.

It was the end of May now, which meant things were considerably warmer, but not too hot yet. It was perfect napping weather.

While the guys sat around complaining about how unprepared they had been for the history exam, I slipped up to the roof. There was a nice long bench and with my blazer as a pillow, I had no trouble getting comfortable.

When I was settled and halfway asleep, I caught a glimpse of blonde hair.

"Uchi," I mumbled without opening my eyes. I heard some shuffling of other benches and felt someone lie down next to me. I dozed off, too lazy to tell him to move.

In what seemed like minutes, my alarm went off on my phone. I groaned, not wanting to get up to go to class. I then realized that not only was my pillow a lot cushier than it had been, but there was a heavy weight across my stomach. My eyes flew open when I realized that my head was resting on someone's shoulder and someone's arm casually slung around me.

Even for Uchi, this was a bit forward…

I turned my head and almost rubbed noses with a sleeping –

"ABE?!" I shouted. "What the hell?!"

I nearly fell off my bench trying to get away from him.

"Gosh, Kana-chan, you're so loud," he groaned, opening his eyes.

Once the initial shock wore off, I was pissed. Who did he think he was, coming and sleeping next to me, and thinking that it was okay to put his hands on me?

"You creep!" I shouted, kicking him so that he fell off the bench. "Ugh, I can't believe this!"

I wanted to beat the crap out of him but now that he had violated my personal space, I didn't want to even go near him.

I ran down the stairs to get off the roof. I had almost reached 3-D when I crashed into Sawada.

"Why are you in such a hurry? Class doesn't start for another 5 minutes."

He stared as Abe came down the stairs behind me with a ridiculous smirk on his face.

"Kana-chan, I have to talk to you later."

"Whatever," I said, dragging Sawada with me towards 3-D.

"What was that?" Sawada asked as I stormed into the classroom.

"Ugh, he woke me up from my nap," I said. I was still fuming, so it must have sounded convincing because Sawada said nothing in reply as class started.

* * *

When I came out of the bathroom during lunch, Abe was waiting for me.

"Before you say anything, I want you to look at something," he said, shoving his phone in my face.

My eyes widened. He had a photo of us, and no matter how you looked at it, I was sleeping in his arms.

I snatched at the phone but he was quick and because he was taller than me, I couldn't reach it.

"One click and this will be all over the school," he said smirking.

I stood there, calculating my moves. Could I punch him in the balls and grab the phone before he clicked that send button? No, his finger was hovering too close.

"I could say you photo-shopped it," I said, trying to buy time.

"Hmm….but it's not like I asked for this," he said. "You're the one that rolled into my arms."

"I was asleep, you bastard!" I shouted, throwing a punch. It merely grazed his arm as he somehow dodged it and caught my arm.

"Girls like you shouldn't use language like that," he scolded. "But what a shame. Your entire class is going to realize they were holding back when it came to you. Who knew you were so easy?"

"What do you want, Abe?" I hissed. "A congratulations for preying on a helpless girl?"

"A girl, yes, but helpless? Not so much," he said. "I want one date. That's all I ask. And at the end of the date, I'll delete this photo forever."

"…That's it?" I asked, honestly surprised. I figured he would ask for things…a lot worse.

"Oh, I could ask for those things you're thinking about," he said with a smirk, "but by the end of the date, you will be begging me to give it to you."

"As if," I spat at him.

"Do we have a deal or is your perfect schoolgirl reputation going to bite the dust? I'm sure Sawatari would love to see this," he said.

I considered my options. As long as he had that photo, he would hold it against me. And I was sure that he would actually do what he threatened to. I thought about Shun's words – that I needed to make graduating as easy as I could. If this photo found its way to the teachers, they would never look at me the same again. I might even be expelled for having inappropriate relations with other students because they would of course assume the worst. Not to mention what my classmates would say…

"…Fine," I said. Besides, how badly could  _one_  date go?

"Good," he answered, smirking. "Tomorrow afternoon. Be ready."

Abe certainly wasted no time. He walked me back to 3-D's classroom to the irritation of my classmates. I headed to my seat, only to hear him say, "Thanks for spending lunch with me today, Kana-chan."

"HUH?!" the entire class shouted at me.

"Wait, you spent the rest of lunch with Abe?!" Minami demanded.

"Is that why you disappeared?" Noda asked me.

"Is that a crime?" I responded in frustration.

"…I mean, it's not, but Abe?" Uchi said.

"Kana, you might not know him that well yet, but he's not a good guy," Kuma said to me.

"I appreciate you all worrying but all we did was talk," I replied.

"About what?" Noda asked me.

"I dunno…class," I said.

Luckily, Fujiyama walked in to begin English class, and the guys completely forgot about what had just happened.

Sawada leaned over while everyone was giving her their full attention.

"Was it about this morning?" he asked me.

"…no," I said, turning away from him to face the board.

* * *

After school, I decided to go straight home. I didn't even walk through the park with the guys like I usually did. I figured they might remember what had happened with Abe at lunch, and I didn't want to answer their questions. If I could have my way, no one would even know about the date. I didn't want to ask them for help, because their way of "helping" me would probably be to start a fight and that wouldn't do anything but guarantee that Abe would send that picture to Sawatari.

When I got home, too early for my shift at work, I flopped down on my bed.

There was a knock but before I could answer, Chiba opened the door.

"You look pissed," he remarked, stumbling inside.

"What do you want?" I asked.

"Not much," he replied, sitting on my bed.

I narrowed my eyes at him. Chiba didn't approach me for no reason at all.

He seemed to sense my reluctance to believe him and he laughed.

"What, I can't come in here and talk to you?"

"Are you drunk?" I asked, sitting up. He reeked of alcohol. "What happened to your job?"

"I skipped out," he said with a shrug.

"Why don't you talk to your girlfriend?" I asked.

"…we broke up."

_Oh_.

Chiba's fingers wandered over my shirt buttons. I grabbed his hand and pushed it away.

"Look, Chiba, I'm not in a good mood right now," I said, standing up.

"I can fix that," he said, grabbing my hand and pulling me closer to him.

"Seriously, Chiba?" I spat at him. "Just because you broke up with your girlfriend does not mean I will do whatever whenever with you."

"Why not? You used to."

I knew he would say it. I knew, and it still felt like a slap across the face.

"That was once, and it will never happen again. I'm not like that anymore."

We stared each other down for what seemed like forever, until he finally stood up and brushed past me.

"It was worth a try," he said without looking at me. "But seriously, don't get so full of yourself."

With that, he slammed the door behind him.

Several moments passed before I finally exhaled the breath that I didn't even realize I had been holding. I stared down at my hands, noticing that my nails had almost cut into my palms from clenching my fists too hard.

"Kana, can I come in?" Shun's voice came from the other side.

I made some noncommittal noise and he opened the door.

"What happened?" he demanded. "Did Chiba do something? Why did he slam your door?"

"I don't know…"

"Look, I know that Chiba can be insensitive, but if you want him to leave you alone, he needs to respect that."

"He was just upset about breaking up with his girlfriend, but I was already upset about some things so we were just taking it out on each other," I said.

He looked at me skeptically.

"Shun, I swear it's fine, okay?" I insisted.

"Okay," he said. "You're still down to work today?"

"Yeah," I said, grabbing my uniform. "I'll be out in a minute."

"Okay then."

I knew that Shun wasn't stupid. He knew that Chiba and I had some beef that we never told him about. But he had never brought it up, especially because Chiba and I were pretty civil to each other on most days. But there were just some days that everything seemed to aggravate our relationship…and there was no way that I could tell Shun the truth.

* * *

I worked my shift as usual, but at night, when I approached my room, a feeling of dread came over me. Chiba hadn't really done anything, but it caused me to remember some things that I had pushed far from my mind.

Instead of going into my room, I slipped down the hallway. I looked around to see if anyone was watching before I slipped into Sho's room.

To my surprise, he was actually there. Sho worked in a popular restaurant in Ikebukuro, and there were some days he didn't come home until the morning.

"You're home!" I said, startling him.

"Geez Kana, don't scare me like that," Sho said, turning around in his chair. "So…why are you here?"

"…I don't want to sleep in my room tonight," I said quietly.

"So you thought you'd steal my bed?" he asked, eyebrows raised.

I grinned. He knew me too well. I flopped onto his bed before he could protest, snuggling into his covers.

"What happened?" he asked, coming to sit on his bed.

I blinked at him innocently. "I just like your bed more."

He gave me a look and I sighed.

"…I just remembered how I used to be when I first came here."

"What about that time?" he asked gently.

"I was such a mess," I said, burying my head into his pillow.

"You still are," he pointed out and I smacked him with his pillow. "Alright, I kid! You're definitely a lot less of a mess than you were back then, I agree."

I sat up and pressed my forehead into his shoulder.

"Hey, hey, what happened?" he asked as I began to cry.

I hated crying in front of people, but there was no other person in this house that wouldn't ridicule me or completely freak out over it. And Sho had seen me cry before so what was one more time, really.

"I wish I was a boy," I whispered. "Things would be so much simpler."

"Why do you say that?" he asked, putting an arm around me.

"If I was a boy, things would have turned out so differently for me…and right now, being a girl is such a disadvantage…"

"Hey, you can't change what happened in the past," Sho reminded.

I knew that, but…

"Chiba broke up with his girlfriend," I said quietly.

I felt Sho's grip tighten on my shoulder.

Because the last time Chiba had "broken up" with his girlfriend, he and I had gotten really really drunk and had done some things I wasn't proud of.

It had happened pretty soon after I had moved into the house. I had realized rather quickly that while Shun wanted me here, not all of the guys did. There were a few guys like Sho who had been friendly from the beginning but the rest had either interacted with me in an awkward way or avoided me altogether. I had been desperate to belong somewhere, and I wanted the approval of the other guys.

I had absolutely no feelings for Chiba, but because we had been both dealing with the aftermath of terrible breakups, I felt like I understood what he was going through. When he invited me to his room to have some beers, I didn't hesitate.

A week later, Chiba got back with his girlfriend, and we never spoke of it again.

I looked up at Sho, remembering what had happened about two weeks after the incident with Chiba.

* * *

" _Drink with me, Sho!" I said, bursting into his room with an armful of beers._

" _You are so underage," Sho said, but he accepted a beer anyway._

_Three beers later, I knew I was pretty buzzed, but still conscious of what I was doing. I crawled into Sho's lap and pressed a kiss to his lips._

_He pretty much immediately threw me off and I stared at him, stunned._

" _Sorry, did you have a girlfriend I don't know about?" I asked, trying to laugh it off._

" _No," he answered, looking extremely conflicted._

" _Then what's the issue?" I asked, leaning closer to him._

" _Dammit, Kana, you need to value yourself," he said, frustrated._

_I pushed him away, disgusted. "I don't need a lecture from you," I spat, standing up. "Just tell me you're not interested and I would have gotten the hint."_

"… _Kana, I'm gay," Sho said quietly._

_I turned around quickly. "What?!"_

_I mean, Sho did keep his appearance really neat but since being metrosexual was a thing, there was nothing that really screamed 'I'm attracted to guys' about him._

_My shock slowly turned to embarrassment._

" _Well…this is awkward…" I said, trying to find the perfect words to say before fleeing the scene._

_And before I knew it, I was crying and Sho had the decency to not only let me cry, but to let me sit on his bed again to cry it out._

" _I'm so embarrassed," I sniffed. "I thought that maybe…you guys would like me more if…"_

" _Kana, I already like you, and you don't need to do anything for me. The other guys…they're just not used to having a girl around, and it'll take them time for them to get used to it, but it'll be okay."_

"… _it's too late," I whispered._

" _Why?"_

"… _A few weeks ago…I…with Chiba…"_

* * *

Why Chiba never told anyone, I had no idea. Maybe he didn't want his girlfriend to find out. Maybe he was scared that Shun would find out and kick him, or maybe both of us, out. That was probably it. Not that Shun had given me any rules about dating or whatever back then, but I was still underage.

"You know, I was super lucky that I picked you," I said to Sho, who rolled his eyes.

"Because I'm gay?" he asked.

"Because you cared enough to not let me continue down that path," I said.

Ever since that day, Sho became one of my favorite people in the house. He could have told Shun but he didn't. And when I discovered that he hadn't told anyone else in the house that he was gay, I realized that Sho had taken a huge risk in confiding in me, even though he had no reason to at all. I didn't know how to repay his trust in me but to trust him back.

I shuddered to think what I would have lost if I had continued to believe that that was all I was good for. Some of the guys were like family to me now, and that wouldn't have happened if Sho hadn't interfered from the beginning.

"Why did you pick me?" he asked.

I blushed. "Because…you were really nice to me…and I thought you were really cute…"

Sho burst out laughing. "I'll take that as a compliment," he said, ruffling my hair.

The last thing he said before we both fell asleep was, "Kana, you're not the same person you were back then. You don't have to be afraid. You've changed."

Had I changed? Really? A part of me hoped that I had. But one thing was for sure: the person I was back then wouldn't have been able to turn down Chiba like I had today. And I couldn't help but think that that in itself was a victory.

* * *

The next morning, I found Sawada waiting for me by the front gate.

"You're here early," I remarked.

"Can we talk?" he asked. "It's about Yankumi."

I nodded. We ended up on the soccer field, because I insisted that the roof wasn't a good place. Sawada looked disbelieving of my reasons but he didn't argue.

"On the way home yesterday, I ran into Tetsu-san and Minoru-san."

"Ah," I said. Who could forget the first yakuza members we had met?

"I ended up asking them a few questions about Yankumi. It turns out that since becoming a teacher was her dream, she might not end up taking up her role as the next Oeda clan leader."

I nodded, slightly confused but interest piqued. What made Yankumi want to be a teacher? And a teacher at a place like Shirokin?

"But it seems her grandfather and her clan are supportive of her decisions, even though some of them secretly hope that one day, she'll come back and be the fourth generation leader," Sawada said.

I bit my lip. I was lucky to have Shun supporting my decision to go back to school. He could have easily been completely against it, like Chiba.

"Did something happen yesterday?" Sawada asked me. "You've been acting weird…like more than usual."

"I am completely fine, thank you," I said, glaring at him. "And I am not weird!"

"You talk with people like Abe," he pointed out.

I fell silent. I couldn't argue with that. But I sighed internally. If I had gone along with the guys after school, maybe the whole thing with Chiba wouldn't have happened.

* * *

We walked into homeroom just as the guys were all riled up about something.

"Kuma-chan~! Kuma Kuma Kuma!" Noda shouted excitedly. "Guess what I found out for you?! Yesterday's girl from Momojou, her name is Morisaki Ami!"

"Wow, you're amazing Noda!" Minami said, clapping his hands.

The guys began to crowd around Kuma, who looked dazed.

"What's this about?" Sawada asked. I leaned forward.

"Yesterday, this Ami girl spilled her parfait all over Kuma," Uchi explained with gusto.

"And she did her best to wipe it all up with her handkerchief," Noda said wistfully. "What if she's totally into you too, Kuma?"

"No way! She has a boyfriend, remember?" Kuma said, hitting Noda lightly.

"Then you should go beat him up!" Minami insisted.

"Yeah, just take her away!" Uchi insisted.

I laughed. Like these guys would actually have the nerve to do these things.

"But…" Kuma protested to the guys' urgings, but he looked incredibly happy.

"Kuma, love is first come first serve," a voice said. Huh? Yankumi?

"Hey, since when did you get here?" Noda demanded as she pushed through the crowd.

"Wow, springtime is the season of love," Yankumi murmured.

"Spring's over," Sawada reminded her.

"No worries Kuma, just go for it!" she said.

"Huh?"

"You should just throw your straightforward feelings at her!" she said, and some of the guys began to nod in agreement.  _Um, that was disrespectful towards her boyfriend, Yankumi_.

"Hey," Sawada said, standing up and tapping her shoulder, "stop saying irresponsible things."

"Irresponsible? I'm just trying to give him love advice-"

"Do you even have enough experience in this field to give advice?" he challenged.

There was a long pause during which the entire class leaned in to hear her answer.

"Let's begin class," Yankumi finally said, and the class collapsed in disappointment.

I grinned. Sawada was definitely pushing her yakuza buttons on purpose. And of course she didn't have experiences falling in love. Who would date a person like her?

"Kana, what do you think I should do?" Kuma asked me as class started.

"…do you have any way of contacting her?" I asked.

"Well…she did leave her handkerchief. I should probably return it, huh…"

"That might be good," I said as encouragingly as I could.

Kuma seemed like he was really into her, and I was happy for him, but I was definitely not qualified to be giving advice on this kind of stuff either.

* * *

Unfortunately, everything went downhill from there.

Abe came to see me during lunch.

"What do you want?" Oishi sneered at him.

Abe smirked. "I'm here to talk to Kana-chan."

"Like hell you are," Uchi said, jumping off of seat. "She eats lunch with us."

"Yeah, no one wants you here," Minami said to him.

"Wow, Minami, standing up to me now? We used to be so close," Abe said, acting hurt.

"Yeah, well we aren't anymore, are we?" Minami shot back at him. Huh, I wonder what happened there?

"Whatever. I just came to remind Kana-chan that we have a date after school today," Abe said.

Uchi grabbed Abe by the collar. "You need to stop spouting nonsense," he growled.

With the entire class now threatening to beat Abe out of the classroom, I knew I couldn't just let them go at it.

"Actually, I did promise Abe, and I intend to keep my promises," I said, standing.

"Whaaaat?!" the class shouted at me.

"Why are you going on a date with him?" Noda demanded.

"Because I want to," I shrugged.

My class seemed to be too shocked at my answer to reply. Meanwhile, Abe slipped out of Uchi's grasp and left the room, but not before giving me a wink.

"Why him? It could have been any one of us in this class," Minami protested.

"Yeah!" the class chorused.

"He asked me straight up," I said. "None of you guys asked me."

"That's because…" Gamo began, but he trailed off.

"Because at first, you guys all immediately liked me because I was a girl. But once you realized that I was not ideal girlfriend material, I became pretty much a "guy" in this class," I pointed out. The class quietly contemplated this.

"But you don't like being treated like a girl," Kuma said.

"Yeah, you want to be seen as a girl but not treated like one? That's so confusing," Noda said.

"Maybe it's something that we guys will never understand," Tomita said from the front of the classroom.

"Ah," the guys all murmured in agreement.

"I've always been a girl," I said, frustrated. "You guys don't get to pick and choose when you want to acknowledge that. Don't act all jealous and protective the moment I'm treated like a girl from someone else! You guys were all just looking at your dirty magazines like you didn't care that I was here just moments ago!"

I left the classroom, frustrated. Was I completely justified to be upset? Maybe not, but I was more than a little annoyed. If they just wanted to wrap it up all neatly by saying they'd never understand me without even trying to, then screw them.

* * *

The fact that I was going on a date with Abe spread like wildfire at the school. Guys began to confidently approach me in the hallways, asking if I'd be willing to go on a date with them next. I spent most of my time hiding in the girls' bathroom to avoid them.

"Why are you doing this?" Uchi demanded as he caught me during a break.

"What are you talking about?" I couldn't help but snap.

"Abe, that's what," Uchi said. "You don't even like him. He calls you Kana-chan. You hate that."

"I just wanted to be treated like a girl for once," I said. "I don't want to be  _one of the guys_."

"So Abe makes you feel like a girl," Uchi asked.

"Yeah," I said daringly.

I saw how tightly his fists were clenched and I took a step back.

Sawada walked up to us at that moment. He put a hand on Uchi's shoulder before he turned to me.

"Does he have some dirt on you or something?" Sawada asked.

"Yeah, what's he holding over your head?" Uchi demanded.

I laughed. "You think I would let someone like him blackmail me? I would kill him before he did that."

"Look, Kana, we're not going to interfere if you really are going out with Abe because you want to," Sawada said finally.

"I'm not dating him," I said. "It's just one date. And yeah, it's my choice." Why did my lies always sound so weak when Sawada was involved?

"But if he hurts you, you know we won't hesitate to step in."

"I can handle myself. Why can't you all just leave me alone?" I snapped.

"Fine. We will," Uchi growled. "Don't come running to us when things don't turn out like you want."

_Really?_  Sawada's look seemed to say before he too walked away after Uchi.

Even Yankumi seemed to find out about it.

"Kana, I hear that you and 3-C's Abe are getting along really well," she said, completely ignoring her lesson to talk about it.

Uchi immediately scowled and kicked at his desk. The fun atmosphere in 3-D was gone.

"Gosh you guys, you can't be mad at Kana for finding a boyfriend in a different class. You guys were all too slow," Yankumi said, completely misunderstanding their attitude. "You guys should do the same and become friends with the guys from other classes. It might be good for you."

I slunk down in my chair, completely miserable. My friends were pissed at me. Yankumi was unknowingly making things worse. And me? I just hated Abe more and more. And I still had the stupid date to look forward to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *baka: stupid/idiot
> 
> Yup, there's lots going on in this chapter/arc. The great thing about it, though, is that there's no pressure to wrap it all up perfectly by the end of the arc/episode like a drama.
> 
> Adding more of Sho into the story made it interesting because Kana's certainly not alone, but she chooses to take on things by herself. Also, Chiba's part is also interesting because I think in my original posts, I made Kana's "gang" seem like it was a completely supportive group with absolutely no issues, but that isn't the case.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading this far. Let me know what you think via the comments. I would really appreciate input on the next couple of chapters especially because so much has been changed/added since the original.
> 
> I really appreciate you all!
> 
> \- Reisa


	12. Alone

When Abe appeared at the door at the end of the day, no one batted an eyelash.

"Kana, your boy is here," Hattori announced.

"He's not my boy," I muttered, but no one would meet my eyes as I stood up and walked across the room.

There was a random gasp when Abe reached for my hand, but I pulled him out of the room before I could figure out who it was. It was probably Kuma to be honest. He was probably the only one not mad at me for what I said earlier.

The moment we were out, I yanked my hand from his grip.

"Don't touch me," I warned as we walked down the hallway.

"It's a date though," he said, chuckling, but he didn't argue. "I thought your class would give me more issues."

When I didn't reply, he continued. "Oh well. It's better that they're mad at us than find out what we've really been doing."

"We haven't been doing anything!" I shouted at him.

"That's not what this picture says," Abe grinned.

I picked up my pace.

_You can do this, Kana. A couple of hours with this scumbag won't hurt you. You've had to deal with way,_ way _worse._

A few guys began to follow us out the school gate but they soon left when Abe glared at them.

"Where are we going?" I asked him.

"I thought I'd let you pick the first place," he said. "Or would you prefer that I plan everything?"

We were going to more than  _one_  place?

"I know a place," I said. At least we were off to a good start. I knew it would stress me out if I stayed angry at him the entire time, so I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. Who knew? Maybe Abe wasn't so terrible outside of school. And he couldn't be that much harder to handle than the 3-D guys, right?

He followed me to the local athletics center.

"Seriously?" he asked as we approached the batting cages.

"You said I could pick," I retorted, picking up a bat.

"I figured you'd pick something a little more suited for a girl…"

I wordlessly walked up to the front desk.

"How long do you plan to bat?" Abe asked me.

"45 minutes," I said.

He raised a brow at me but stepped ahead and paid for my station.

"Aren't you going to do it too?"

"Maybe later," he said.

I shrugged and stepped into my station.

The first ball came flying and I swung as hard as I could. PING! The sound was music to my ears.

"Gosh, Kana-chan. You make it so hard for a guy to impress you," Abe said.

"Shut up and pick up a bat," I snapped, getting into position for the next ball.

I lost track of time as I gave every ball my full attention. I imagined each and every hit to represent me punching Abe in the face and taking back that photo.

Forty minutes later, I found myself too tired to continue. I turned around to see Abe sitting on a bench right behind my station. Had he been sitting there the entire time?

"Are you done now?" he asked.

"Yeah," I said.

"You were amazing!" he said. I gave him a look. It was probably the first time he actually sounded genuine. "Ah, I bet you wondered if that was a true compliment," he said with a grin, and I immediately took it back. Fake fake  _fake_.

"Let's go eat!" he said, pulling on my arm.

"I said not to touch me," I growled. My arms were aching and extremely sensitive now. Maybe batting for that long had been a stupid idea.

* * *

We walked for a little while before Abe led us into a small restaurant. When we were led to our seats, the waitress handed us a special "couple" menu, and I almost got up and left.

"They actually think we're a couple!" Abe had said gleefully.

I had dreaded this part because I knew there was nothing to distract us from actually having to talk to each other. But I soon found I had worried for nothing because Abe was more than happy to fill up the silence with useless chatter about himself and his accomplishments. I ate quietly, sitting there as he droned on and on and on. He talked about how he had played basketball in middle school and how he was actually quite good, but he was way too good to be on the Shirokin team so he quit playing. (What was that logic?) He talked about how his class was  _so_  lucky to have beautiful Fujiyama as their homeroom teacher instead of Iwamoto or Yankumi. And then he started talking about he was  _so_  popular with the ladies but wasn't I  _so_  lucky that he had decided to pick me? I rolled my eyes.

"Is there anything else you want to know about me?" he asked.

"You said you used to be friend with Minami," I began.

"Wow, you remember so much of what I say!" he said.  _This guy…_

"Just tell me," I said, stabbing at my salad. At this point, I was only mildly annoyed with him for the date itself, and I was hoping that he wouldn't say anything that would make that worse. But a part of me knew that  _that_  was asking for too much.

"It was him and me and Kuma, all in class 2-B last year," he said. "We hung out a lot together. Kuma didn't use to be such a huge softie, and Minami didn't use to be so pathetic."

I smirked, thinking that if Kuma and Minami could hear him, Abe wouldn't be sitting here acting so brave.

"And then they got grouped into 3-D this year and they started acting like they were better than I was."

"I see," was all I said. I couldn't imagine Kuma and Minami hanging out with this guy. But maybe that was why they were so insistent that I didn't spend time with Abe.

"And what about you?" Abe asked. "Why were you expelled? And why did you start school a week late?"

I was impressed that he actually asked about me. Such low standards I set for him…

"I don't want to talk about my expulsions," I said firmly. "As for that first week at school, I was in the hospital for part of it. I started a fight with a guy from Ara High and he called his friends."

"What were you fighting about?"

"…does it matter?"

"I guess not," he said. "But when you're my girlfriend, I won't let you get into meaningless fights."

Almost instinctively, I stood up.  _Now_  I was pissed. He was so close to making it safely to the end of the date too.

"Oh, did I get ahead of myself and call you my girlfriend?" Abe laughed, pulling out his phone. "But remember, we still have the rest of the date left before I delete this photo. At this point, I hate that I even have to remind you. We were getting along so well."

I sat back down with a huff, fists clenched under the table.

I couldn't believe I was using my day off of work from this. When Shun had asked me what I would be doing, I couldn't even answer him. How could I tell him that I would be giving in to blackmail from some punk? But at the end of the day, as long as that photo was deleted…

"You swear you'll delete it?" I asked, teeth clenched.

"Of course," he said.

At least he paid for the food. The sky was getting dark now, and I wondered how much longer I had to endure this arrogant ass.

"Let's just walk around," he said. He reached for my hand and I flinched.

For the picture, I repeated over and over in my head. I kept my eyes to ground so I didn't have to see his smirk.

Bad idea. The next time I looked up, we had wandered into the seedy part of the business district.

"What are we doing here?" I asked.

"Well, you seemed a little tired so I thought we might take a break," he said.

We had stopped in front of a hotel. Was this guy serious?

I began to laugh. "There's no way I'm going in there," I said, turning around to start walking back.

"Come on, Kana-chan, it's just to rest for a little while," he said, grabbing my arm. I instantly regretted having put so much of my energy into batting earlier as I struggled to break free from his grasp.

I didn't want to make a scene. The moment the police came and questioned us, we would most definitely be reported to Sawatari for having been in this area in the first place. But Abe was crazy if he thought that by buying me dinner, I would agree to this, not over some lousy photo. And I was furious at myself for having let my guard down even a little bit.

I was seriously about to try biting his arm when I saw something that I never thought I'd be so relieved to see in my life. Iwamoto and Ando turned the corner and were walking toward us. They were still a ways away but they would soon be close enough to look up and see us.

"It's Iwamoto and Ando!" I hissed. "The teachers are patrolling again tonight. You run that way and I'll go this way!"

"But…"

"Are you an idiot?! Do you want to get caught here? GO!" I said, using the opportunity to yank my arm free from his grip and start running.

I didn't even look behind me to see if Abe had managed to get going. I was too busy turning into small alleyways and trying to get out of this part of town.

I finally managed to make my way to the very end of the street where the hotels started when I turned a corner and crashed into someone.

"Nakajima-san?" Kawashima gasped, as shocked as I was when we had both regained our balance.

_Crap_.

"I was on my way home and some pervert came after me but I'm fine now and I'm going to go straight home!" I managed to ramble out before taking off.

I didn't stop running until I got to the house. Maybe I shouldn't have run away from her, but there had been no time to think. I crossed my fingers and hoped she didn't assume anything, or even worse, report me for being in that area. I doubted that Abe would back me up, not after I had basically ditched him.

* * *

When I finally composed myself and walked inside, I found Shun and Chiba talking about something.

"Welcome home," Shun said.

"What's up?" I asked, as I poured myself some water, avoiding looking at Chiba.

"Chiba has a lead on the metal stick incidents that are going on," Shun explained to me. "Police are speculating that it's a group of local high school students, and Chiba's been narrowing down who they could be."

"Huh. I thought you would have figured it out by now," I said nonchalantly. Chiba was usually really quick about these kinds of things. I don't know how he did it, but he was really resourceful about getting information.

"Shut up!" Chiba hissed and stormed off.

"Really, Kana? Was that necessary?" Shun said angrily. "He just broke up with his girlfriend, remember?"

"Crap, I didn't mean it to sound like it did," I said, actually feeling bad. "It wasn't supposed to sound mocking at all…I'll go talk to him."

"You probably shouldn't," Shun warned, turning to leave the room. "He's already mad. Just leave him alone for a while. And seriously, watch what you say. I'm surprised I even have to remind you at this point."

I nodded weakly.

Sho wasn't home that night but I ended up sleeping on his bed again anyway.

Was there seriously any area of my life that I hadn't managed to screw up?

* * *

I seriously contemplated skipping school the next day. I would have to see Abe, none of my classmates would want to see me, and Kawashima would probably demand an explanation. It didn't seem worth it. But I didn't want to aggravate Shun any more than I already had last night, so I begrudgingly pulled on my shoes and headed for Shirokin.

Kuma was the only one who greeted me when I walked into class.

"Hey, you give that girl back her handkerchief yesterday?" I asked him as we waited for homeroom to begin.

"Yeah…" he said, but looked dejected. "But her boyfriend showed up. He's some prep from Shinguji."

Poor guy. I patted his arm, unsure of what to say.

"How was your…date?" he asked me slowly.

"Terrible," I said with a grin.

"Seriously though, Kana, that Abe is no good. He has a way of making people do things that they don't want to…you will tell us if that happens to you, right?"

"Of course," I said with a forced smile. Lying to Kuma seemed so wrong. Even though he looked scary, he was always the most caring and honest. "Where's everyone?" I asked, changing the subject.

"Sawada just sent me a text that he overslept. He's heading over right now."

I nodded. "And the others?"

Just then, Uchi, Minami, Yagyu, Oishi and some others dragged in a kid from Class 3-A into the room. The entire class stood up. What was going on?

"This is the kid that ratted us out to the teachers last night," Oishi said, throwing the guy into the center of the room where the desks were cleared.

"What for?" Kuma asked.

"We were smoking at the arcade last night, and he told the teachers on night duty," Yagyu scoffed.

"You rat," Minami said, pushing the guy.

"We don't like snitches," Uchi joined in.

Some of the guys formed a ring and began to push the 3-A guy around, either chanting or taking turns kicking him. They guy had absolutely no chance of defending himself.

Kuma and I stood at the back, staring at this scene. I knew that our class was rowdy, but I never knew that they could be so cruel. Sure, they were pissed, but wasn't it their fault to begin with? Who was stupid enough to smoke where they would get caught?

"Hey…" Kuma called out slowly, but his voice was drowned out by the jeers and chants.

I stared at the poor kid, who was covering his head and jerking from the kicks he received. My hands gripped the edge of my desk, knuckles turning white. For a moment, I felt like it was me in the circle, being beat up by a different gang before Shun and the others would show up.

Yankumi suddenly charged into the room, yelling "What the hell are you guys doing?!"

The class quieted as Yankumi broke up the circle and leaned over the kid, helping him up.

"Hey, you okay? You're in Class 3-A, right? Go back to class for now, okay?" she said, nudging him out the door before she turned to us.

"What is this?" she demanded. "Did you hear me? I want an explanation!"

"That kid ratted us out that we were smoking at the arcade last night to the teachers!" Oishi finally said.

"So you guys all ganged up on him…" Yankumi muttered. "You guys are the worst."

"Last time, you were all into the fight, so why the hell are you changing your mind now?!" Minami demanded.

"So you don't tolerate fighting after all," Noda scoffed.

"You guys don't even know why I'm mad at you! This isn't fighting! This is plain violence! I hate stupid things like this! This isn't even a fair fight. You all ganged up on one person and that's exactly what that group of violent high school punks are out doing! You're no better than they are!" Yankumi shouted at the people standing in the circle. She then turned to the rest of us. "And all of you who just sat and watched without stopping them are just as responsible as the ones beating him up!"

_I was just as responsible…_

"What's the difference between fighting and violence?" Uchi asked slowly.

"Uchiyama," Yankumi said sharply, "are you asking for real?"

"Who would know that?!" he shouted at her.

"Let's go," Noda said, heading for the door.

"Noda!" Kuma shouted.

"Shut up!" Minami yelled, and Uchi kicked a desk over before all of the people who had been beating up the guy walked out with them.

"Uchi, Minami!" Kuma called after them to no avail. I sighed, running a hand through my hair in frustration before picking up my stuff.

"What happened?" Sawada asked from the back door of the classroom.

The loudspeakers suddenly came on. "Nakajima Kana-san, please report to the nurse's office immediately."

_At this timing?!_  I cursed under my breath.

"Go on, Kuma," I said, pushing both of them out the door. I glanced back at Yankumi, who stood forlornly in the middle of the room. The rest of the class sat there in awkward silence. Why was everything falling apart all at once? A part of me wondered if it was my fault.

* * *

After Kuma and Sawada left, I walked into the nurse's office, bracing myself for the worst.

Kawashima turned to me and smiled.

"It's okay, you're not in trouble," she said. "Just take a seat."

I sat tentatively on one of the beds. The whiteness of the walls was unnerving and I shuddered.

"I just wanted to make sure that you're okay," she began, fiddling with a back scratcher.

Huh? Oh yeah. I had lied about some pervert. Well, Abe  _was_  a pervert but that was beside the point.

"Yes, I'm fine," I said quickly. "I'm sorry I ran away. I was really freaked out."

"I'm glad you're okay," she said. "Are you sure you don't want to report it to the police?"

"It's fine," I said, hoping it didn't sound suspicious. "I didn't see the guy's face anyway."

Kawashima nodded. I was about to thank her and leave when she spoke.

"I actually wanted to use this chance to make sure that you knew about protection."

_Protection?_

I had absolutely no clue what she was talking about until she pressed some condoms into my hand.  _What?!_

"I don't know if they covered any of this stuff at your last school, but I wanted to be sure," she said. "I am the school nurse after all. I know that I'm supposed to tell you not to have sex at all, but that's pointless. This school is full of adolescent guys so let's be real – your chances have gone up compared to an all girls' school. But I promise you that protection is a million times better than getting pregnant at your age."

I was speechless.

"Do you want me to show you how to use that?" she asked. She was so blunt!

"No!" I squeaked, standing up. I couldn't believe she just said that. I jammed the condoms in my pocket.

"I heard you're going out with Abe. You into those wild types? Your class has plenty of those but I'm guessing you didn't want to pick someone you had to see all the time, right?"

I just stared at her. She wasn't being nosy or intrusive, I knew that. But this wasn't something I talked about with anyone, ever.

"Okay, that's all," she said. "I won't tell the other teachers about last night. If you reconsider and feel like reporting the incident to the police, you should."

"Thank you," I said, before fleeing the room.

* * *

After trying to pull myself together after that awkward conversation, I decided that I didn't want to go back to the classroom, not after what had happened earlier. I already had my stuff so I decided to leave.

"Ditching?" Abe said, arms folded as he stood in front of the guys' bathroom.

"Abe, I seriously don't have time for this," I said, pushing past him.

"That photo…I haven't deleted it yet," he said. "When are you going to make it up to me?"

"Tomorrow!" I growled at him, biting back my reply of "Never".

"Fine. Oh and you dropped something," he said, leaning over to pick it up. He raised his eyebrows at me, holding up a condom wrapper. "You should have just told me that  _this_  is what you were worried about! Clearly, you are not as innocent as I thought. I am  _so_  looking forward to tomorrow."

"I hope you choke on something and die," I muttered as I headed for the school gate.

I knew Shun would kill me for ditching again, so I headed for an internet café.

After paying for the hours I'd be there, I walked into my cubicle and slid into the chair.

I closed my eyes and Yankumi's words came rushing back to me.

_I was just as responsible…_

I had never seen Yankumi so angry with us. But it wasn't just anger…it was disappointment. It was like she expected better from us. And we had failed her expectations. I had also never seen Uchi and Minami and Noda that angry. I was used to them fighting with Sawatari, but to yell at Yankumi?

There was too much happening. Abe, Chiba, Yankumi was part of the mafia, all of 3-D being mad at me and those stupid kids beating people up…I tried falling asleep, but I found that I was too restless. I ended up leaving the internet café early, after mindlessly browsing the internet, and went to the gym instead. It was the only way I knew how to get rid of stress.

I practiced my boxing strikes on a sandbag, ignoring the pain in my arms, until my knuckles were raw. I ended up running on the treadmill afterwards until I physically couldn't anymore.

"Don't push yourself too hard," the guy running next to me had said kindly.

But pushing myself was the only way I knew how to deal with this. I had screwed up so many things, and I had to fix them on my own. At this point, no one would help me even if I asked anyway, but I wouldn't ask for help either way. These were my mistakes. I could take care of myself.

I found out from Kuma later via text that the guys that were beating up the Class 3-A guy had also skipped school because they were pissed at Yankumi. And Yankumi was probably still really pissed at all of us too. What would happen to our class now?

* * *

"Stay away from Shinguji," Shun said to me the next morning as I got ready to leave. "Chiba found out that the guys going around beating up people are from there. They got careless and were spotted running away from the scene. We'll deal with them later today."

Shinguji…where had I heard of that before?

I trudged into homeroom, still incredibly sore from working out way too much yesterday, to find that everyone was already there, except for Kuma and Sawada. Everyone was clearly still upset from yesterday. No one spared me a glance.

Suddenly, Yagyu walked in, his arm in a sling and a bandage around his head.

"What happened?!" the class demanded, immediately jumping to their feet.

"I got beat up by that group of with the metal sticks. They're just punks from Shinguji," he said.

I was stunned. Maybe I had been super naive but I never expected that one of my classmates would actually be attacked.

"Those rich preps!" Minami growled.

"Have you told the police about this?" Uchi asked Yagyu, who shook his head. "Alright, then this is our chance to get revenge!" Uchi shouted, raising a fist.

"Wait!" I said, grabbing his arm.

"What?!" he snapped, as the rest were impatient to go.

"You…you can't go," I said.

"So what, are we just going to stand here when our own classmate got beat up?!" Noda demanded.

"What's wrong with getting back at them?!" Minami asked me.

I shook my head. "It isn't right…you can't just all gang up on them…"

There was no way they would be exempt from serious consequences if they went, especially in the name of "getting back" at the guys who hurt Yagyu. And this was a situation I knew too well. It wouldn't end with just one fight. It would lead to another, and another, and another…

But there was no way I could explain to them that Shun would take care of this later.

"Aren't you pissed that a classmate of ours got beat up?!" Shimazu shouted at me.

"Of course I am!" How could they doubt that? "I am…but…"

"She doesn't get it," I heard someone mutter as a ripple of impatient groans went through the class.

"It's because she doesn't consider herself one of us," someone else said, and I froze.

"I mean, she's Abe's girl now," someone agreed. "Why would she associate with us?"

"Besides, it's not like she hangs out with us after school. She has no sense of loyalty to our class."

I was glad I couldn't tell who was making these accusations. I looked helplessly at Uchi, Minami, and Noda. Noda looked at me guiltily, and I realized what he was thinking about. The café…he couldn't tell them…he promised.

"You don't understand!" I shouted at them before Noda could open his mouth.

"No, YOU don't understand!" Uchi said, yanking his arm from my grasp. "I'm sorry, Kana, but this is a guy thing. A girl like you wouldn't understand."

A girl like me…why did everyone insist on pushing onto me their own definitions of what kind of girl I was and should be?

Before I could really think about what I was doing, I grabbed his collar and yanked him towards me.

"What did you say?!" I demanded.

"You don't understand what it's like to be loyal to your friends!" he shouted at me. "You're the one going and sleeping with guys from other classes!"

"What the hell?!" I shouted at him.

"People saw you and Abe in front of a hotel yesterday. Don't even deny it! I can't believe you," he said in disgust. "I thought you were different."

There was a short pause as I looked at him in disbelief before I lunged at him, sure that I had hit him somewhere in the face, before a group of guys held me back. I didn't even have the strength to do anything else. Uchi stared at me from the floor, his skin red from where my fist had grazed his cheek.

"Leave her there!" someone shouted, and I was pushed to the floor before the guys surged out, breaking into a run.

I let my head hit the floor and I closed my eyes, fists still clenched. My knuckles were still smarting, still sensitive from yesterday. Somehow, I knew that it would come to this, when I wouldn't be able to say anything to convince anyone of anything. But I knew that I still had to do something. I reached for my phone.

"Sawada, it's Kana. Yagyu got beat up last night by some Shinguji guys so the class went after them."

"…Kuma did too."

I sat up. "Kuma?"

"He found out that the Shinguji guys' next target is that Ami girl's boyfriend. They're planning to beat the boyfriend up in front of her, so Kuma went to protect her."

At least Kuma's intentions are good, I thought dryly. But I didn't know what to do next.

"I called Yankumi," Sawada's voice cut into my thoughts. "Meet me at the bus stop by the station?"

I hesitated for a moment. I wasn't sure that my being there would help in any way. But if Yankumi could do something...I didn't want to miss it. I couldn't just leave my class, even if none of them trusted me anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Even if you're super frustrated with what's happening, write me a comment and let me know! It's really helpful for me to read and I really appreciate that feedback!
> 
> I was definitely frustrated writing this chapter because it's so much more fun to write about 3-D when they're all getting along and being stupid but having fun together. But all this "conflict" causes people to re-evaluate their relationships and their beliefs, so at least that's interesting.
> 
> And the next chapter means Yankumi to the rescue! ^^


	13. Apologies

I crashed into Fujiyama Sensei as I ran out the door.

"What?" she gasped.

I raced on without really looking at her. She must have been shocked that the guys would ditch her class, of all things.

I met Sawada halfway to the bus station.

"They're out by one of the warehouses by the harbor," he said as we continued to run. "What happened exactly?"

I explained to him about Yagyu and how the class went to get revenge. Then I fell silent. How would I even begin to explain what happened next. Uchi's hateful words, the judgmental stares, the uncontrollable rage, all culminating in the feeling of my knuckles hitting Uchi's cheekbone.

"And what happened to you?" Sawada asked.

"I tried to stop them…" I said. I didn't elaborate, and Sawada didn't ask.

We came across Yankumi when we were almost at the harbor. I did a double take. Her hair was down, flowing over her shoulders, and her glasses were gone. Suddenly, she actually looked very Ojou-like.

"The class also went to get revenge, because Yagyu got attacked by them last night," Sawada informed her.

"Those guys…" she muttered, before she began to run again. We followed her, and our footsteps thundered in my ears. I tried ignoring the way my legs were protesting after having run so much yesterday.

"I couldn't stop them…" I said, feeling guilty and bracing for the bashing from Yankumi.

Instead, she gave me a nod. "At least you tried, instead of just letting them go."

I bit my lip, concentrating on her words. I had grown up with the notion that attempts were worthless unless they were successful. It was one of the first times I had been, in a way, praised for unsuccessful effort.

* * *

We finally got to the row of warehouses. But which one could it be?

"Don't think you can get away with this!" we suddenly heard Uchi's voice loud and clear.

When we got to the right warehouse, we saw that Uchi and the rest of 3-D were advancing on a group of seven to eight guys wielding metal poles. Those were Shinguji students for sure.

"Kuma!" I let out a gasp. He lay between the two groups, immobile and incredibly beat up.

"Don't move!" Yankumi shouted as we ran into the warehouse.

"Kuma," Sawada said, crouching by him and shaking his shoulders. I pressed my handkerchief to his cuts, but it didn't look like he would stop bleeding anytime soon. I stared up at the Shinguji students. They looked more scared about 3-D than remorseful for what they had done. I clenched my fists.

Yankumi walked up to 3-D and said, "What do you guys intend to do here?"

"Don't get in the way," Uchi said, stepping forward. "All of those incidents of people getting beat up were done by them!"

Yankumi turned and stared at the Shinguji students, who flinched.

"They even beat up Yagyu and Kuma!"

"You can't expect us not to do anything about it!"

"Don't you see? If you start a fight here, you'll sink to their level. Then they'll get back at you and it'll become a never ending cycle. Where will it end? It won't, no matter how many times you fight one another," Yankumi shouted.

3-D fell silent. We all stared at her. There was something about her and her voice that demanded respect.

She then turned to the Shinguji guys, who all took a step back. "You've caused a lot of harm to my students," she said, stepping towards them.

"A teacher?" disbelieving voices muttered.

"Aren't you guys ashamed?" Yankumi asked. "You can't fight one on one, so you gang up on people together? Is that fun?"

"Shut up!" one of them shouted. "Those guys aren't going to do crap in society anyways!"

"And who are you to judge?" she shot back. "I really pity you guys. You don't even know how to fight properly!"

"Shut up!" they shouted, and one of them lifted his metal bar and swung it at her. She dodged and grabbed his arm, pushing him to the ground. Another aimed straight at her, but she ducked and punched him in the stomach before tripping him to the ground.

"What the? She's so strong!" Shimazu said in disbelief. Oh right. Only a few of us knew that she could do this. But every time she did, I could only stare in awe. This was the yakuza heiress side of her that she kept hiding from us. Gone was the dorky clumsy math teacher and in her place stood a formidable woman.

One of the Shinguji guys suddenly let out a frustrated growl before standing up and lunging forward at her, fist raised.

"Yankumi!" Sawada shouted in warning, but she made no sign of moving.

I winced at the crack that came when the guy's fist connected with her face. When I opened my eyes, I was stunned to see Yankumi still standing, her long hair falling back into place to reveal a bloody lip. The guy stood a distance away, clutching his fist with the other hand and shaking in pain.

"It hurts, doesn't it?" Yankumi said. "Of course it does. Not just your arm, but your entire body. To fight using your bare hands causes pain. If you don't even understand something that simple, don't go around with metal sticks!"

Her voice resonated in the warehouse. The guy that had punched her slid to his knees, still clutching his hand in pain.

"Kuma…" Sawada said suddenly as Kuma stirred. I helped Kuma sit up, trying to avoid the bruises on his arms.

"You're a real man, Kuma," Yankumi said, crouching by us. "You fought to protect that girl, didn't you? That's the true meaning of fighting."

I looked over and saw a girl in a Momojou uniform crouching behind a box nearby. So this was the rumored Ami…

Yankumi stood up and addressed all of us, both Shinguji and Shirokin. "Listen up! There will come a day when all of you have to fight to protect something. It will test your worth and your limits. Fights are meant to be hand to hand combat so don't group it with meaningless violence. To protect something you love is the true meaning of fighting."

To protect something I love…did I even have something like that?

At Yankumi's words, 3-D began to move. Uchi and Noda and some others stepped forward to help Kuma up while Minami and Hattori and others went to see if Ami was okay. I took a step back, suddenly feeling no longer needed or wanted. I couldn't look any of my classmates in the eyes anyway, not after knowing what they thought of me.

"Let's go," Yankumi said, smiling as she looked at us.

"What about these guys?" Uchi asked. "We're not turning them into the police?"

"They're not stupid. They've learned their lesson," Yankumi said. She turned to them. "Make sure you guys sort this out yourself. You know what you have to do."

She began to walk out and the class followed her. I turned to look back at the Shinguji students.

Shun and Chiba and the others would have come by here later and completely destroyed these guys. It would have been in the name of protecting the town too.

But Yankumi had let herself be hit…I didn't understand but it was so new to me.

I was stunned when I realized I was glad Yankumi had gotten to them first.

* * *

When I walked out of the warehouse, Class 3-D stood watching as Ami thanked Kuma for protected her. After she had walked away, they began to tease him.

But when I took a step towards them, the teasing faded away into uncomfortable silence.

It was something so immediate and awkward that even Yankumi didn't miss it. "What's going on?" she demanded as we all avoided each other's gazes. When no one answered, she raised her voice. "I'm asking you what the hell is going on?!"

"It's fine, Yankumi," I began to say but she didn't believe me.

"She didn't want to come with us to get back at them for Yagyu," Oishi finally said. "She doesn't care what happens to us."

"But she's here now, isn't she?" Yankumi snapped.

"Kana's the one that told me that you guys were coming here," Sawada said. "I don't know what happened at school, but she didn't have to come and she did."

When the guys didn't answer, Yankumi came to a realization. "Don't tell me that this is about the Abe thing again," she said sharply.

"She picked him over us," Uesugi grumbled.

"What does that even mean?" Yankumi demanded. "Does that mean she had to pick one of you? Or does that mean she no longer is a part of this class because she wants to date someone else?"

"But that Abe hates us!"

"Then have you asked her why she's dating him? What if she really likes him, huh? And if you still think her reasons are wrong, would you give up on her as a friend? Wasn't she there for you guys when you guys made mistakes? Especially you guys, Uchi, Minami, Noda. Wouldn't you rather watch over her and make sure she's okay than throw her away because you don't like who she's dating? What kind of friends are you?"

I wanted to disappear into the ground. I couldn't believe Yankumi was getting so angry on my behalf. The last thing I wanted was to make this an even bigger deal than it already was.

But she then turned to me.

"And what about you, Kana? If you think your friends are mad at you for the wrong reasons, why don't you tell them that? Why don't you try to clear up the misunderstanding? If you don't think they'll listen to you, shout it at them until they get it! You have to fight for your friends!"

I was stunned by her words, but deep down, I knew she was right. I had let this happen to me. Sure, I had done my best to take preventative measures, but once the damage was done, I hadn't even really tried to defend myself. I just let 3-D be mad at me because I was too prideful to explain what had actually happened. But seriously, how could I?

The silence was broken when Uchi stepped towards me awkwardly.

He stared at the ground for a little while and swallowed hard. "I…I had no right to treat you like that," he said, his gaze wavering as if it hurt him to look at me. "I'm really sorry!" he shouted, bowing his head deeply.

"Even if I did sleep with Abe?" The words slipped out of my mouth before I could stop myself.

Yankumi gasped and Sawada immediately shushed her.

"…even if," Uchi said, voice a bit unsteady.

I let out a sigh before I spoke. "It's fine," I said quietly. "It can't be helped if that's how people see me. I know you guys are just being nice because I'm a girl."

I cringed as I said it. It finally came out. The real fear I'd been carrying with me from day one. I was never sure if anyone in my class liked me for who I really was – or at least, for the person I allowed myself to be while at school. It was like I got a free pass for whatever I did because I was a girl. If I had been a guy, I felt like 3-D would have hated me from the beginning…

"That's not true!"

I jumped a little at how quickly and loudly the protest came.

"I know we act girl-crazy, but we've all had our share of crazy ex-girlfriends," Minami said.

"Yeah, we wouldn't have liked you if you were the kind to start drama for no reason," Oishi said.

"And it's cool that you never tried to change us so you'd be more comfortable," Chikamatsu said.

"I guess we all took that for granted after a while," Shimazu said. "It's really our bad."

"We're sorry!" the class chorused at me, bowing their heads.

I was so unused to being apologized to that it caused me to tear up a little. I blinked them back rapidly. I wouldn't cry in front of them.

"Thanks…I'm sorry it looked like I betrayed the class and for not explaining my actions and not fighting to clear all of the misunderstandings…I didn't sleep with Abe by the way," I added for good measure, looking at Yankumi.

"Goodness, you were about to give me a heart attack!" she said, slapping my shoulder.  _Ow_.

The guys all straightened up and we all sort of smiled nervously at each other. There was still a lot to talk about but at least we were now on the same page for the most part.

"But seriously, the most shocking thing was Yankumi!" Uchi said, stretching his arms.

"Yeah, where  _did_  you learn to fight like that?" Minami asked her.

She turned around, eyes wide. "Um, um, um…I watch a lot of Bruce Lee!" she said, doing a couple of cheesy moves, complete with sound effects. The magic was broken and she had returned to the dorky teacher we all knew. She then turned. "You guys won't tell the school what happened, right? I mean, it's bad if they found out about my fighting…"

"Of course we won't tell," Noda said. "Don't worry about it."

Yankumi smiled in relief. It looked like her secret would be safe for another day. "Let's go back to school," she said.

* * *

On the way back, the guys began singing a song to tease Kuma about Ami. I hung back behind the group with Yankumi and Sawada, thinking about everything that had just happened.

"Why did you lie to them?" Sawada asked Yankumi, putting an end to my processing for a moment.

"Huh?" Yankumi said.

"It's that bad if they found out that you're the successor to the Oeda Household, huh?" Sawada continued. I stared at him. Why was he bringing  _that_ up?

"Of course it is," Yankumi answered. "You guys…YOU GUYS! Why the heck do you know?!"

I looked at her. There was no use in hiding it now that she knew. "Who do you think delivered your phone, huh?" She was speechless.

"But we're not going to tell anyone. If you got fired, school would be pretty boring," Sawada told her in that expressionless way of his.

Yankumi wiped away dramatic tears before pushing to the front of 3-D.

"Let's race to that big sun in front of us! Are you with me? GOOOO!" she shouted and took off.

All of us just stood there, watching her run. Some of the guys waved as she ran farther and farther away. I smiled. She was so strange. But she had taught me so much already. For the first time in my life, I was beginning to appreciate a teacher.

"Why did you tell her?" I asked Sawada. "I thought it was a secret that we knew, even from her."

"I don't know," he shrugged. "Wouldn't you hate it if someone didn't tell you that they knew something important about you?"

I was quiet. That was true, but…it wasn't like we had anything to  _gain_  by telling Yankumi.

"There's a lot we don't know about you," Sawada said quietly.

"I know," I said, looking at the ground. The less I said, the more they would have to assume.

"You know, if you need to talk, we're always here," he said. I looked up, surprised. I couldn't read his expression, but I could recognize the kindness in his words.

"Why did you…allow me into your group?" I asked slowly, genuinely curious. Sawada didn't look like the person who would hang out with or trust just anyone.

"You remind me of someone," he said matter-of-factly. "A little rebellious, a little short-tempered, a little bit insecure but incredibly stubborn. Besides, you fought to for Minami and to clear Uchi's name and you barely knew us then."

I was satisfied with his answer, at least for now. I was definitely curious about who I reminded him of but it didn't look like he would tell me so I didn't ask.

"Hey Kana," Uchi said awkwardly, walking over to us. "I…sorry. I was really out of line. I feel like I don't even have a right to talk to you."

"You already apologized," I pointed out softly. Apologies were so new to me. "It's fine, really. I punched you too, so I really think that makes us even."

Sawada raised an eyebrow, noticing the slight tinge on Uchi's cheek for the first time.

I looked over to the where the rest of the class were hanging around. Now that Yankumi was gone, I knew that I at the very least owed them the truth.

"If you could call all of the guys here, I'd really appreciate it," I said to Uchi, who looked at me in surprise.

"Hey guys," he said immediately, rounding them up.

I stood there awkwardly, not sure how to begin. I knew I wanted to do this once I found a chance, but I didn't realize it would come so soon.

"Umm…there's something I've been hiding from you all," I said finally, trying to address them properly. "I was sleeping on the roof the other day, and Abe came and took a…compromising picture…but I didn't want you guys to see or know and he said he would delete it if I went on a date with him but it was the worst date I'd ever been on and when he took me to the hotel, I ran away so he still has the picture and I just wanted to deal with this myself because I was embarrassed and I'm sorry."

I ran out of breath at the end of my run-on sentence. I closed my eyes, afraid to hear what would happen next.

"Did you think that we would judge you?" Uchi asked, definitely sounding hurt.

I opened my eyes but kept my eyes on my shoes. "Yeah." How silly it all sounded now.

"That Abe, who the hell does he think he is?" Noda grumbled.

"What should we do about him?" Oishi asked tentatively.

I looked at them, watching them be uncomfortable with the fact that they probably wanted to put Abe into the ground but not being sure if that would go against what Yankumi had just taught us.

"But it's enough for me that you guys know now," I said. "I don't need you to do anything. I'm going to meet up with Abe and finish this. We have to take Kuma to the infirmary as soon as we can anyway."

"I'm fine!" Kuma insisted. "You should be more worried about yourself. What if Abe tries something again?"

"That won't happen," I said firmly. The guys looked at each other skeptically.

I would show them that I could handle it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving (to those that celebrate it). I definitely ate too much...
> 
> Nothing is for certain yet, but I might be working in Japan starting next year! It's a very exciting thought.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading and commenting! I am definitely thankful that people are still reading my story even though the drama aired such a long time ago.
> 
> And yes, dealing with Abe has been put off but it is definitely happening next chapter! For those that thought 3-D and Shun's group might have their first clash this time around, I hope you weren't too disappointed. I felt like it was too early for that to happen, and because of the fight between Kana & 3-D, it would have been a little too crazy. It would have been really easy for 3-D to write Kana off as a "gang member" when they're already mad at her.
> 
> Please let me know what you thought via comments/PM! Thank you! ^^
> 
> \- Reisa


	14. Accepted

Once we got back to school, the guys took Kuma to the infirmary. When Sawatari saw the state that Kuma was in and heard from Yankumi that all 3-D had left school to do was protect Kuma, he was speechless. It didn't look like we'd get in trouble after all.

I knew that 3-D would insist on accompanying me to confront Abe, so I slipped away at the first chance. I couldn't risk them starting a fight or having teachers assume that 3-D was trying to start something when we really weren't.

"Abe, I need to talk to you," I said, throwing open the door to 3-C.

"Anything for you," he smirked as his classmates catcalled after us.

"You have your phone?" I asked him.

"Of course. I wouldn't let it out of my sight with such precious content on it."

Ugh, gross. I just wanted to get this over with.

When we got to the roof, I turned to him.

"What's your price?" I asked, arms crossed.

"Another date," he replied immediately.

"Will you cut the crap? You don't even like me."

"What? Of course I do!"

"You constantly point out the ways that I don't fit into your standard of what a girl acts like. You just want to get laid. And if you're actually as popular with the ladies as you say you are, that shouldn't even be a problem. Why do you even bother with me?"

"So you're not that dumb after all," he said, hands in his pockets. "Any guy at this school can get laid as long as they're smart enough to know how. But if it's you? Do you know how much respect is in it for the guy who manages to get in your pants first?"

I began to laugh. Now that Abe had dropped his act, this was absolutely ridiculous. He glared at me and I did my best to stop.

"Who are you even trying to impress?" I asked, biting my lip. "You're already the leader in your class."

He dropped his gaze immediately. "No one in particular," he growled.

My eyes widened. There was only be one person at this school who could make him feel threatened like that.

"Sawada?" I asked incredulously.  _No way…_

He flinched and kicked at the ground. "No," he growled unconvincingly.

"But why would you be jealous of Sawada?" I asked.

"I'm not jealous!" he barked at me. "It's just that he's always had the respect of all of the students and all of the teachers. And for what? Beating up a teacher at his last school but still managing to have the top grades? What a joke."

"So you think that sleeping with me would top that?" I wondered out loud. Seriously, what was wrong with this guy?

"Being the first guy to conquer the only girl at an all boys' school is a pretty big deal. You must be blind if you don't know that all of the guys at this school want to get with you. They're just scared of what Sawada and 3-D will do."

"Well, I don't think you even know how this works," I said, and he looked up. "What's the point if you have the respect of all of the guys but not of the girl you hook up with?"

He stared at me blankly. "Who the hell cares if you respect me or not? All you have to do is put out."

Wow, he was seriously not even going to hide his intentions at all, was he?

I grinned. "You've never had a girl insult your skills, have you?"

He stared at my blankly, clearly not understanding.

"Well, you see…you can say what you want, but what's stopping me from telling people how terrible the experience was?"

"…It…you…that doesn't even matter," he finally spit out. "Who would believe you anyway?"

"But if I said that whatever you can do, Sawada can do better…" I said, taking a gamble.

His jaw dropped. "What?!"

"Hey, if you're going to use me to save yourself, at least tell me beforehand," a voice spoke. We both turned to see Sawada saunter onto the roof.

What…had he heard me say all that just now?

"You told him?!" Abe demanded. I didn't respond. I wasn't sure why Sawada was here and what he intended to do. Sawada simply stood there, a few feet away from us.

"Did you forget what will happen to you if this goes public?" Abe said finally as he pulled out his phone, his voice low and threatening.

"It doesn't matter," I said, staring him in the eyes. "My class will believe me."

"Your class," he scoffed. "That group of pathetic losers!"

"Says the guy who wants to be recognized by us," I spat. "You don't have the right to talk about my class like that!"

"After I treated you so nicely on that date, who do you think you are?" he hissed, grabbing my shoulders.

"I suggest you keep your hands off," Sawada said, his hand suddenly on Abe's arm.

"What, did you come to claim her?" Abe taunted, his grip tightening on my shoulders. "And all alone too?"

"Alone?" Sawada said, eyebrow raised.

Suddenly, Uchi and the rest of 3-D burst onto the roof as if on cue. Even Kuma, who should have been resting in the infirmary, was there.

"What's this?" Abe asked, taking a step back, releasing me from his death grip.

"I told you I could handle it myself!" I said, not sure what to do now that they were here. But I couldn't ignore the fact that I felt better now that they were.

"Even if you can, you shouldn't have to!" Uchi shouted at me. "You don't have to do this alone. That's what we're here for."

I bit my lip. I wasn't sure I could even begin to adequately express what I was thinking.

"What, so you guys are going to beat me up or what?" Abe sneered, but his voice sounded shaky.

3-D didn't reply. They just stood in front of us quietly, staring him down.

"Heh. Until I called dibs on you, they treated you like a guy. And now? They just think that you're a weak girl, and by this show of bravery, they're hoping to have a better chance with you," Abe scoffed. "They're the same as every guy at this school."

"Wrong!" the class shouted at him. We both stared at them.

"Kana's not just some girl," Noda said.

"And you're a fool if you think she's weak," Minami laughed.

"And she's not just one of the guys either," Kuma added.

"She's our classmate," Uchi said, the entire class nodding along.

Classmate. Not one of the guys. Not the one girl in the group of guys.  _Classmate_.

"And if someone threatens our classmate, we protect them," Sawada said. He grabbed Abe by the collar and seemed to whisper something in his ear.

Abe stiffened and found the photo. He seemed to hesitate for a moment, his finger hovering over the screen. One tap and that photo would end up being sent to his entire contacts list. But his finger moved. Tap. Delete.

He glared at me for a second before he threw his hands in the air. "I guess you're one of them now, Kana-chan. How disappointing," he said, trying desperately to put his cool act back on before he pushed past 3-D.

"YES!" the entire class shouted.

I grinned. I couldn't help it. My victory was every much theirs too. But when the class surged forward towards me, I found myself suddenly feeling dizzy, and I ended up grabbing Sawada's arm to keep myself upright. What was happening to me?

"Are you okay?" everyone asked, as I rested my forehead against Sawada's shoulder for a brief moment, trying to pull myself together.

"What are you all doing here?" Yankumi yelled as she ran onto the roof. Everyone froze.

I didn't look up right away but what she must have seen was me doing my absolute best to remain standing while surrounded by a concerned 3-D as Abe fled the scene.

"Hold it right there!" Yankumi shouted at Abe who froze. "How dare you bully a girl? What do you have to say for yourself?!"

"What does this have to do with you?" Abe scoffed.

"I'm her homeroom teacher after all," Yankumi said through gritted teeth. "You go back there and apologize to her right now!"

"Like hell I will," Abe snarled and turned to walk past her.

"You reduce my precious student to this much discomfort and insecurity and that's the attitude you show?" she shouted, grabbing him by the collar and punching him.

Abe fell to the ground, clutching his bleeding mouth.

"Now apologize!" Yankumi demanded as we all stared in shock. Did she just…?

"Ah no, Yankumi," I said, finally finding a chance to speak. "I just don't feel well."

"What?" Yankumi gasped. "You mean, Abe didn't hurt you?"

"Well…not like that," I said, finally regaining my balance and releasing Sawada's arm.

Yankumi's expression changed to one of panic. "I am so sorry!" she said to Abe, trying to help him up.

He threw off her arm. "What the hell is wrong with this entire class?" he shouted, leaving the roof.

"Oh my goodness, what will I do? I will get in so much trouble!" Yankumi said frantically.

"Don't worry. He's smart so he won't say a word," Sawada spoke up. "There's no way that he'd admit that a female teacher managed to knock him down."

When all of us realized that this was true, I felt free to laugh guiltlessly at how fast karma managed to catch up to him. I was the first to want to land a punch on Abe myself, but knowing that my freaking homeroom teacher had done it for me felt so much better.

"Seriously, Kana, what were you thinking, taking him on by yourself?" Minami said, patting my head.

"Yeah, you have all of us here to back you up," Kuma said.

"Thank you," I said, beaming at all of the guys. What a huge weight off of my chest. Well…one of them.

I looked over at Uchi who was staring at the ground. He raised his eyes and I gave him a tentative smile. We had a lot to talk about.

And Sawada. What on earth had he said to Abe?

And I didn't feel patronized by what he said about protecting his classmates.

I felt accepted and strangely at peace.

All of a sudden, everything in my vision turned black and I felt myself falling.

When I opened my eyes, I saw my entire class crowded around me. Yankumi was supporting me as I lay there. I blinked, unsure what had happened.

"You blacked out for a second there," Sawada said.

Which meant that I basically fainted in front of my classmates. I wanted to disappear. Seriously, how could I be so weak?

"Kana, you're a girl, so you need to take it easy," Yankumi said concernedly. "Alright, someone carry Kana to the infirmary!"

"Ah, please don't carry me!" I said, but I was ushered onto Uchi's back before I could protest. I tentatively held onto Uchi's shoulders as he carefully stood up and began to head down the stairs.

"It's okay to hold on more tightly," he said softly.

I was glad he couldn't see my face. It was like he was saying something about our friendship, not just this situation, and I couldn't help but feel guilty.

Everyone else followed me all the way to the infirmary, and I was put on the bed next to Kuma's.

"Sheesh, what is with your class getting hurt today?" Kawashima asked Yankumi, who shrugged.

"They're just extremely passionate," she said.

"Kana, have you been sleeping or eating much?" Kawashima asked me.

I shook my head sheepishly. I didn't realize how quickly not eating or sleeping would affect me.

"Seriously, you need to take care of yourself," she said, making me drink a thing of juice before making me lie down. She shooed the rest of 3-D out, saying that only the sick and injured were allowed here.

Kuma fell asleep almost immediately and his soft snores made me laugh a little bit. I fell asleep soon after.

* * *

When I woke up, I saw that I had slept for a few hours. I did feel a lot better. Kawashima stepped out for a little bit for something faculty related after making sure that I was okay.

Kuma was still snoring and I smiled.

"He's always like that," a voice said. I looked over and saw Sawada standing in the doorway. "How do you feel?" he asked me.

"Umm…I guess I needed some rest," I said. I then remembered that Sawada had appeared on the roof at a really awkward time.

"Sorry for using you to help myself," I said, blushing. How embarrassing. "It just kind of came out. If rumors start going around, I'll take full responsibility."

"I don't think Abe is going to give people one more reason they should respect me over him," Sawada reasoned. "Besides, I'm not mad. Now I know why you didn't ask Yankumi for help. You thought she would have taken all of this talk out of proportion, right?"

"Her gasp at the thought of me actually sleeping with Abe," I said with a laugh. "I don't think she would have understood what it is that Abe had actually wanted from me. She's way too innocent. But watching her punch Abe felt so so good."

We both grinned, sharing in the satisfaction of that moment.

"...What did you say to Abe?" I asked.

He shrugged. "Just that I'd been recording the entire conversation, and he should delete the photo if he didn't want the recording to fall into Sawatari's hands."

I stared at him. Why hadn't I thought of that?

"Thank you," I said, not knowing what else to say. He nodded.

"Oh yeah, Uchi told me to tell you that he'll walk you home."

At the mention of Uchi, I involuntarily flinched, surprising myself. It didn't escape Sawada's notice.

"I know it doesn't excuse what Uchi did or said to you at all. But I wanted to explain what I meant by Uchi not giving his heart to just anyone," Sawada said, sticking his hands his pockets.

I nodded, asking him to continue.

"Uchi's life has been a series of people he trusts abandoning him. His dad left his family when he was seven. His mom still talks about his dad in a really positive light but Uchi has never forgiven him for hurting him and his mom like that. In middle school, his first love agreed to be his girlfriend but several months in, he found out that she was also seeing a high school student. When he went to confront the other guy, he was completely beat up and the girl didn't even care. That's why Uchi started fighting more with people around him. And then last year…a good friend of ours caused an incident and disappeared without a word from our lives. There are some other people, but those are the major ones."

I couldn't breathe. No wonder Uchi was so angry at the thought of me having completely betrayed the class. He had taken it personally as just another person he trusted throwing his trust back in his face.

"I'm not saying this because it allows Uchi to do whatever he wants," Sawada said quietly. "We all have trust issues. And it might take a long time before you guys trust each other again. But he does really care about you, so if it's not too much to ask, don't make him feel like he has to add another person to that list."

"Uchi is really important to you, huh?" I said.

"…He's the first person to talk to me when I got here," he said. He was looking away so I couldn't see his face but I imagined that he was smiling at the memory.

"I'll do my best," I promised. "Ah…but if you could be there for him…I know he feels really guilty about what he said and I don't know if I can say anything to make it go away…"

"Yeah," he said. He got up to leave but right before he exited, he turned to me. "I won't bring it up again if you won't, but I'm pretty sure what you said to Abe is true."

"Huh?"

"I  _can_  do most things better than him," he said with a smirk. I chucked the small role of bandage tape I found on Kawashima's desk at him in exasperation.

Once Sawada left, I realized what that Uchi's message meant that he expected to be able to walk me  _all_  the way home. I was sure that he wouldn't take no as an answer and that meant he would find out about Shun…

I threw back the covers and scribbled a note to Kawashima that I had gone home. I drank an extra juice can for good measure before grabbing my stuff and booking it.

* * *

I made sure to call Uchi just around the time school ended. I was already safe at home, lounging in my room when I finally racked up the courage to do it.

"Hey Uchi, I'm sorry I left without saying anything…but I asked my cousin to come pick me up."

I didn't want to say my parents because that would be a flat out lie but somehow cousin didn't seem too far off.

"Ah, okay. So you're home now?" he asked.

"Yeah…"

There was an awkward silence as we both struggled to say something.

"Look, can we talk on Monday?" I said finally. "I want to use the weekend to think a little bit but I really do want to talk things out with you."

"Yeah, same," he said. "…I'm really sorry, Kana. If I had known that Abe -"

"Uchi, if you keep feeling bad for what happened, we're never going to get past this," I said firmly. "Just think about what you want our friendship to look like from now on, okay?"

"…okay. See you Monday then."

"Monday," I promised. It would probably be one of the most awkward conversations ever, but it had to happen.

When I walked from the café to the house to grab dinner during my break, I found Sho in the kitchen making himself some food. His schedule was so irregular that it was always a pleasant surprise to see him. I found that he was often sleeping while I was at school and by the time I returned, he was usually already gone for work.

"Want to make me some too?" I said, sliding into the counter seat.

"I will if you tell me what you were doing with a boy at the batting cage on Wednesday night," Sho replied as he continued to cook.

"How do you know that?" I asked, surprised.

"Tatsuya-san saw you when you were leaving but you were too far away for him to say anything," Sho said.

"Oh. I wonder how Tatsuya-san's doing," I said, skirting the question, but Sho would have none of that.

"You're not getting one bite until you explain. Tatsuya-san said he didn't like the look of that guy you were with."

"What if he's my boyfriend?" I asked, trying to steal some of the meat from the pan but Sho whacked my hand with the spatula.

"Ha, yeah right," Sho said. "Tatsuya-san's amazing at reading people. Unlike you."

"Hey!" I protested. "That's not fair."

Sho just gave me a look and I gave a dramatic sigh.

I looked around really quick to make sure that Shun wasn't around at least before telling Sho a little bit about why I had been at the batting cages to begin with and what had happened after with Abe and 3-D. He put a plate of food in front of me as I continued to talk but the more I told him, the more he looked displeased.

"You're an idiot."

I frowned at Sho's words. "But I was able to fix everything."

"Yeah, and how much faster would it have gone if you had just told everyone from the start?" he pointed out. He continued to eat his dinner as I tried to figure out how to respond.

"Yeah but…my class would have killed Abe, and then where would I be?" I argued. "Plus now, it's not over some ownership issue over me. They actually respect me now."

Respect. All I had ever wanted from my classmates.

"I still think you're an idiot," Sho said. "Why didn't you tell someone who could have done something about Abe?"

"No one would have believed me! Abe's in a class above mine! He already gets more credibility in the teachers' eyes because of that!"

"What about your homeroom teacher? It sounds like she would have helped you out."

I fell silent. Yankumi. I hadn't even really given her a thought. I had been so caught up in judging her for her failure to keep her background a secret that I hadn't even thought of asking her for help.

"And what about me?" Sho asked. "You could have told me about Abe that one night."

"I wanted to do it by myself," I said stubbornly. "I can handle it!"

"But you almost couldn't."

"Shun would have agreed with what I did!"

"I would have agreed with what?" Shun said, walking by at that moment.

"I ran into a problem and then I handled it!" I said.

"Good for you, kid," Shun said with a smile.

I threw a triumphant smirk in Sho's direction. He scowled and kept eating.

"That group of students that were causing all those violent incidents turned themselves in today," Shun said. "Do you know anything about that?"

I nodded. He listened as I briefly explained what had happened. I omitted the detail that Yankumi was part of the Oeda Household as well as the fact that my class had been angry with me. Shun didn't need to know everything.

"Well, I guess it saved us from having to go up against high school students," Shun remarked.

I nodded, internally wincing at how differently it would have turned out for those Shinguji kids.

My phone suddenly rang and I picked up.

"Kana!" I heard Noda's cheerful voice.

"Hey, what's going on?" I asked.

He paused a bit before he blurted out his question. "Why can't I tell about your job?"

My grip on my phone tightened. I hadn't been expecting this question.

"I mean, that misunderstanding today would have never happened if you told everyone what you did after school," he rambled on. "I knew you didn't want me to tell, but it wasn't cool what they said…"

"But that doesn't change the fact that I'm a girl," I said calmly. "That misunderstanding was bound to happen anyways…Just keep it a secret until I'm ready to tell the others, okay?"

He eventually agreed, clearly not completely understanding but willing to do as I asked. And I appreciated that.

Once I hung up, I sat at the counter, brooding over how long this façade would last. The first cracks were already starting to appear, if they weren't already there to begin with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for all the typos in the last chapter. I can't believe I missed a ton of them. :(
> 
> So Abe's done and dealt with! As much as I wanted Kana to be the one to punch him in the face, I thought it wouldn't make as much sense in terms of consequences & the lessons that Yankumi is trying to teach them about fighting. But he still got punched in the face, so I hope that was satisfying!
> 
> Things are progressing a lot more slowly than I planned (both in the writing process and in terms of events in the story) and I'm finding that it's not a bad thing. This arc was pretty important, and while I'm glad it's now done, I'm also glad that I broke it up into smaller chunks and spent more time on it. Next few chapters will be new material (as in not in the drama), so I'm a little nervous but also really excited!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! ^^


	15. Making Amends

After the incidents with the Shinguji guys and Abe, the weeks barreled on towards summer vacation.

Abe left me alone, which made my life easier. There were occasionally times we'd pass each other in the hallway, but he would keep walking, refusing to acknowledge me. And Sawada had been right. Not a word about Yankumi punching Abe was heard outside of 3-D. Yankumi had been incredibly tense for a couple of days but after that, things were back to normal.

My relationship with 3-D wasn't fixed immediately. There were still moments when they made assumptions about my feelings or I would do something that was confusing to them. But to their credit, they were trying really hard to be attentive to my feelings, almost too much.

For instance, they insisted that the whole thing with Abe wouldn't have happened if they had been keeping a better eye on me so they designed an entire schedule which meant that there would always be at least two 3-D students walking me to and from everywhere I went during school hours.

"This is ridiculous and unnecessary!" I protested but they would have none of it.

"This is our way of protecting you!" was the reply.

"Hey, we should also rotate who walks you home!" Minami said.

I looked at him in horror. How would I explain that this was where I drew the line? I would endure anything during school hours, but they needed to give me space after school.

"Maybe that's too much," Noda spoke up, noticing my predicament.

"But what if she gets assaulted on the way home?" Yagyu said.

"Yeah!" the class chimed.

Yankumi walked in at that moment, about to start class.

"Kana, I just found out that your grandparents are your legal guardians and that they live in Tochigi," she said to me.

"Tochigi?" the guys chorused.

I wasn't sure how to respond to this sudden change in topic. And why was Yankumi digging around my background?

"No wonder I don't see you hanging out with these guys after school," Yankumi continued. "You wouldn't want to get home too late after all out of respect to your grandparents."

Oh. OH. I could use this.

"Yeah," I said simply. "They live in Tochigi."

"Wait, so your commute is pretty far?" Uchi asked.

"And all those times you stayed late with us, you've had to go home at night by yourself?" Minami asked concernedly.

"All the more reason to go along with you!" Mori argued. "That's so dangerous!"

"No!" I said too quickly too loudly. Everyone stared at me. I rushed to find an excuse, any excuse. "My grandparents don't know that this is an all boys' school. So it wouldn't be good if any of you followed me home. They would pull me out immediately."

"You didn't tell your grandparents?" Yankumi asked, surprised.

I shook my head. "After getting expelled from my last school, they expected me to quit school altogether. But I found out about Shirokin and asked them if I could try one more time. I'm the one that dealt with all of the paperwork…if they knew that there were no other girls, I would be forced to quit."

This was all true. I had literally begged for one final chance. They agreed on the condition that I would be able to find a school that would still admit me after seeing my record. As far as they knew, Shirokin was a new co-ed school, and I was getting along with both my male and female classmates.

Yankumi looked perplexed. "I don't like the idea of them not knowing…but we wouldn't want you to have to quit…"

"Then we'll at least walk you to the train station!" Chikamatsu suggested.

Ugh, they just wouldn't drop it.

* * *

 

But thanks to their little system, I got to know 3-D better on an individual level. While I didn't immediately click with every person, knowing more about who they were and what their interests are and why they even ended up in this class helped me to understand my classmates better. Even Oishi, who to me seemed to be the most intimidating and rash person in the class besides Uchi, became someone who I felt more comfortable with.

And once the rest of the school saw that, they left me alone. No more random invites to "hang out" and certainly no more letters in my shoebox. Some of the girls at my last school would have been devastated, but I was beyond pleased. This also meant I didn't have to ever explain myself about "dates" to the guys at home.

And though I should I have expected it, once the discovery about Tochigi was made, my relationship with my five closer friends shifted.

My daily conversations with Kuma and Minami went something like this:

"Kana, I found some more restaurants with local food that you have to try!" Kuma would say during homeroom, putting a bunch of pamphlets on my desk.

"More, Kuma?"

"Yeah! See this one? I wonder if you can get food like this in Tochigi…"

It always made me wonder if Kuma realized that Tochigi wasn't actually that far away. It wasn't like we were traveling across the country here. But I also knew that Kuma was searching for the "perfect" restaurant to take Ami to once he racked up enough courage to ask her out, so I put up with his constant recommendations.

"Kana, more importantly, how about introducing me to Tochigi girls?"

"Minami, I already told you that I went to school in Saitama and I hardly know anyone in Tochigi anyway!"

"Saitama girls then!"

"…I really don't keep in touch with anyone from back then…besides, isn't it just easier to get a girlfriend who's from around here?"

Minami would then sigh dramatically. "I don't know if you noticed, Kana, but we go to Shirokin. Girls are scared of Shirokin guys. It seriously kills our game."

I would then roll my eyes and start getting ready for class.

Those two would without fail bring up Tochigi every day. But the other three…

Noda seemed extremely confused about this whole Tochigi situation since he knew about my job at the café. He didn't voice his confusion or his suspicion though, so I left it alone because I wasn't sure how to bring it up either.

Sawada was the only person who didn't seem to care about this whole Tochigi thing. Sure, it didn't make sense why I would come all the way from Tochigi just to go to a school like Shirokin, but he didn't question it. At times, I wondered if he even believed it to be true. But like Noda, he didn't say anything, so neither did I.

And Uchi…my friendship with him was always the most complicated.

* * *

 

My conversation with Uchi after the Abe incident hadn't been too terrible in the end but it was difficult and awkward to have.

We ended up talking in the park after school after a weekend of thinking things through. We sat across from each other, both of us clearly unsure how to even begin this conversation.

"I said some terrible things to you," Uchi said finally. "I accused you…of not being loyal…and of…sleeping with Abe…I can't believe I jumped to those conclusions, especially about you. I just…I don't know what I was thinking."

"You were angry," I pointed out. "And I was angry too. But to be honest, I think most of my anger was packed into that punch so I'm not really mad anymore." This was true. I just wanted to move past it and go back to normal again.

Uchi fell silent. He seemed to be mulling over a lot of things.

"What are you thinking about?" I prompted.

"I thought you going on a date with Abe was a joke at first," Uchi admitted. "I thought you were just trying to humor him. But when you told me that he made you actually feel like a girl…I was really angry, but mostly at myself for not noticing that the way we treated you was actually bothering you."

"Well…I wouldn't say it bothered me until this whole thing actually happened," I explained. "The moment you all found out that I was spending time with Abe, it was like something flipped in 3-D, like it was the first day I was in that classroom."

"…why didn't you ask us for help?" he asked quietly, picking at the grass.

"About Abe?" I asked. He nodded. I thought for a minute about what I could say. What would be genuine enough for Uchi? "I grew up doing a lot of things on my own. I was scared at first to ask people around me for help because I didn't want to look weak, but that grew into a pride in being able to take care of myself. Even now, the environment at home is one that reinforces being tough and taking care of problems on my own."

"From your grandparents?" Uchi asked.

I nodded, not trusting myself and not wanting to hear myself lie to Uchi.

"So you thought that Abe was something you could take on by yourself," Uchi said. It wasn't judgmental, more speculative.

"It was my problem and I didn't want to make it a big deal," I said. "What was one date compared to possibly being shunned by the school? But Abe was a bigger scumbag than I thought, and before I knew it, it had already blown up in my face."

"I still want to hurt him," Uchi said angrily. "Forcing you to do things you don't want…are you sure you don't want us to do anything to him?"

"Yankumi punched him already. Besides…it's just better if we never have to interact again. I'm fine. He didn't hurt me…he was just stupid enough to think that he would be able to get whatever he wanted from me."

"When I heard that you had been seen at the hotel…it wasn't even something that I anticipated happening…and then I just assumed the worst. It didn't even cross my mind that you didn't even want to be there," Uchi continued quietly.

"Yeah…I guess it did hurt when you assumed that about me…" I admitted quietly. He lowered his gaze in shame.

We sat in silence for a while. I didn't want him to feel bad, because there were always going to be things that I could never tell Uchi. But how could I explain that to him without telling him what those things are?

"I was angry…because…" Uchi broke off, swallowing hard.

I remembered what Sawada had told me about Uchi, about his issues of trusting people. "Because you thought I was betraying you?" I asked softly.

"I know I have no right to feel that way. I mean, you don't owe me anything and even though I…"

Uchi fell silent again. I wasn't sure if he was going to finish that sentence, but then he spoke.

"…do you still think we can be friends?" Uchi asked me.

I looked up in surprise. "Did you think that not being friends anymore was a possibility?"

"I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't want to talk to me anymore. Yankumi's right. You were always there for me, even when I hadn't even given you a reason to trust me. But the moment I should have repaid the favor…"

"Hey," I said, making him look at me. The words started to spill out of my mouth. "Whether you like it or not, I'm not going anywhere. I know it hurt you when it looked like I didn't care about what you thought and that I didn't turn to you about my issue with Abe. And I'm sorry. To be honest, there's definitely still a part of me that feels like I could have handled it on my own. But when you and the rest of the class came onto the roof in my defense, I felt incredibly happy. And you know what? I'm sure there will be tons of other times when I'll be stupid and you'll come through for me. Okay?"

"…okay," he said. "And I'll ask you when you do something I don't understand."

"…I guess we should have been a lot less mad and a lot more communicative," I said, sensing the end of our conversation.

"Yeah…it's like we both forgot how to be friends for a moment…"

"I'm sorry," we both blurted out simultaneously. We stared at each other before laughing.

"I missed…this," he said. "Hanging out and stuff."

"Me too," I said. But our conversation wasn't over yet. I had promised myself I would tell Uchi at least this, so I racked up some nerves and placed a hand on his arm. "I do want to make one thing clear. You said that you thought I was different, and I know you meant that in terms of me and Abe. But…I'm not the kind of girl you might think I am…"

"…What do you mean?" he asked.

I took a breath. Why was this so difficult to admit to Uchi? "I think it hurt more that you thought I was like that because...I used to be that kind of girl…I ran into scumbag guys but I didn't know where to draw lines in our relationship, and so I gave more of myself than I should have."

I expected him to look at me the same way he did when he accused me of sleeping with Abe, so I took back my hand and stared at my feet.

Uchi suddenly jumped to his feet. "Who are those guys?" he shouted furiously, startling me. "Who would take advantage of you like that? Where are they? Tell me right now so I can go beat them up!"

People around us in the park stopped what they were doing and stared at us as I looked up at him, mouth open in shock.

"Tell me!" he insisted as I stood up, grinning. "Why are you smiling? I'm being serious!"

I began to laugh. I couldn't help it. He was so upset, and this was not the reaction I had been expecting. "Uchi, it's fine. It's all in the past anyway. But…thanks."

Uchi looked at me skeptically.

"Look," I said, trying to be serious again, "there are some things about me that I'm still not ready to share with you or the others. There are lots of things about me that I'm not proud of and I know you might be worried about it or get angry again…but I promise I'm okay. And if I'm not, I'll tell you, okay?"

"…Yeah," Uchi said, even though he looked a little confused.

"Oh, and there is something you can do for me," I said, changing the subject.

"What's that?" he asked immediately.

"…there's one place that I absolutely love but I took Abe there and now I won't be able to go there without thinking about him. Can you help me fix that?"

"…yeah but how?" he asked.

I dragged him with me to the batting center.

"Here?" he asked.

I nodded. "Can we bat a couple of rounds?"

"Okay…that's it?"

"Yup! Winner buys takoyaki?"

"Hell yeah," he said with a grin.

After that, things had relatively gone back to normal. There were times that I could tell Uchi was being careful with his words, but we were able to joke around like before, and that's all that I wanted.

There was a part of me that wanted to tell him that Sawada had told me about his background, but I wasn't sure how he would respond so I didn't. And there was always always going to be the sinking feeling I got every time I looked at Uchi. I didn't understand it either. I was fighting so desperately to keep our friendship, yet there was no way I could ever be completely honest with him.

I wasn't being fair and there was nothing I would do about it.

* * *

 

Though most things had quickly gone back to normal, there were a few more things that had changed.

I noticed that Kawashima went out of her way to say hello to me. It was definitely awkward because of the whole condom thing that had happened, and at first, I thought it was her way of keeping tabs on me, but after a while, I wasn't so sure anymore. She was never pushy, but it was like she was making clear to me that she was simply there. I wasn't sure how I felt about that.

My relationship with Yankumi also changed after that. She was definitely making more of an effort to spend time with me, especially during breaks and lunch. The guys would grumble that she was butting into time they looked forward to not being under supervision of teachers, but she would show up anyways.

At first, she tried to talk about super "girly" things. She would bring up shopping, makeup and boys, but because I had no interest in those things, she would end up talking all about her crush on Shinohara, the detective that seemed to always be in charge of incidents related to Shirokin.

For someone who had grown up with the yakuza, Yankumi was painfully oblivious to the realities of what happened in relationships. She talked about Shinohara as if he was a prince and all the gentlemanly things he could do to sweep her off her feet. First of all, I didn't think she even realized the consequences of a yakuza-bred woman like her getting involved with a detective. Secondly, it was like she had been sheltered from all the womanizing that yakuza people tended to do. I considered handing her one of the condoms that Kawashima had given me just to see how she would react, but I decided that would be a little bit too cruel and so I refrained.

If Yankumi wanted to consider relationships to be all lovey-dovey and perfect, I wasn't going to be the one to burst her bubble.

But it wasn't just with me that Yankumi insisted on getting to know.

One day, Yankumi had this ridiculous idea to hold five minute meetings with us to figure out what we wanted to do. After all, this summer break would be "crucial" in respects to our futures. I figured she was fed up by how we failed to take her "future career" worksheet seriously.

She said she would fail our math finals if we didn't show up to make sure we would do it.

I was pretty sure she wasn't allowed to do that, but I showed up to my session anyway, not knowing what to expect.

"Kana, come in," Yankumi said beaming. "I've been wanting to have this woman-to-woman talk for the longest time and I'm sorry it's taken so long!"

"Ah, it's okay," I said, not sure what else to say.

"So you're adjusting well to this school? I know the boys can be rowdy but they really are good people," Yankumi said enthusiastically.

"I know," I said.

"Especially since you came from an all girls' school," Yankumi rambled on.

"So what have you been asking everyone who walks in here?" I asked.

"Oh yes. What are you interested in doing after graduation?" Yankumi asked me.

"I'm not going to college," I said. "That's all I've got."

Yankumi's brows furrowed. "Surely there must be something you want to do."

I shook my head. I'd been focusing so strongly on graduating that I hadn't really thought about the future. I figured I'd stick around with Shun, probably still work at the café.

"Well, what kind of job would you like, assuming you'll be working?" Yankumi said.

"Anything, really," I said with a shrug.

"You must have some interest in a particular business."

I sighed internally. So Yankumi would attempt to squeeze a nonexistent life dream out of me.

"Café," I said finally.

"What was that?"

"I'll work at a café," I said.

Yankumi blinked. "A café?"

I waited for her to tell me that it wasn't ambitious enough and I should aspire for greater things.

But Yankumi suddenly clasped her hands together. "That's a brilliant idea!" she exclaimed. "If you work hard enough you can become the manager one day! I can just imagine walking in and being greeted by my former student! You'll have to become more outwardly friendly, of course, but we have enough time to groom you into the perfect hostess and manager! Leave it to me!"

I don't know where Yankumi's fantasies were taking her, but I hadn't been expecting her to be so enthusiastic about this.

* * *

 

She eventually got through the entire class. It was like pulling teeth, but everyone came up with something to tell her and according to my classmates, she had surprisingly responded with more enthusiasm than expected to each and every person's "dream".

But she wasn't satisfied with just hearing them. She began to take "practical" steps to make sure they would become a reality. We just had no idea what she was planning.

"Our last event before summer vacation is our annual school festival!" Yankumi announced one day, only to be met with boos.

"No one even comes to that for us," Uchi explained.

"Yeah, no cute girls ever come," Minami said.

"But now that Shirokin is technically a co-ed school, I'm sure lots of girls will come because they'll be curious to see how Shirokin has changed."

What kind of logic –

"REALLY?!" the guys all exclaimed. Well…all, except for Sawada.

"Of course," Yankumi said with a smile.

The class was immediately over the moon and it took a while for Yankumi to calm them down.

"Since it'll take too long for our class to come to a consensus on anything, I've decided to designate a class representative to lead the class's idea. Drumroll please!" Yankumi said. The guys obliged. "And our class representative for this year is….Kana!"

"Why do I have to do it?" I demanded immediately.

"Because you know…your dream!" she said with a wink.

My dream?

Oh. That dream. To manage a café…

"It'll build your leadership skills," she said in an exaggerated whisper.

But I wasn't a leader type. If she had picked Sawada, he could have said anything and the guys would do it. But me?

I stood awkwardly in front of the class. Yankumi told me we had two days to decide what we would be doing as a class before leaving the classroom. It didn't help that Sawada sat back with his arms crossed, smirking as if he were enjoying my pain. I glared at him before I turned to the class.

"What should we do?" I asked.

"How about food?" Of course, Kuma. But I was grateful that he had even thrown out a suggestion. But the vetoes from the class came loud and swift.

"Too much work."

"We'd end up smelling like food."

"We can't pick up girls like that."

"Plus Kuma'd eat it all."

"HEY!"

"What about a band?"

"…a 26 person band?!"

"Not all of us can play instruments you know!"

"Then you can dance in the background!"

"You're demoting me to the background?!"

"Guys!" I shouted before a fight broke out yet again. "Seriously."

"A host club!" Minami shouted suddenly.

"Minami! You're a genius!"

"Yes! This way we can spend time with all the girls!"

"And we can all appeal to our own talents!"

"But…" I began, but no one was listening to me. They were all too excited about the idea of chatting up girls as their contribution to the school festival. But there was one problem with doing a host club. Fujiyama was recently almost fired for being a hostess. She might see it as super insensitive of us to do something like that.

I didn't super care what Fujiyama thought, but I knew it would kill the guys, especially Noda, to find out after the fact that they had unintentionally hurt their beloved English teacher.

The guys came up with nothing else that afternoon and I was tempted to blow the whole thing off. School festivals had never been fun to me and I was sure that this would be no different.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading and your lovely comments!
> 
> This chapter in particular took a long time because not only is it not an episode in the drama, but I wanted to get the conversation between Kana and Uchi as close to the heart of their characters as possible. Kana's still protecting herself, but some of the guys are definitely peeling away at her layers.
> 
> Also, a reader (SakuraTomoyoIsolatedHope) on FF.net pointed out that there was an inconsistency as to where Kana went to school before Shirokin and I wanted to clear that up!
> 
> The full name of the school is Momoyuri Jyoshi Gakuin (桃百合女子学院）which is referred to as Momoyuri as well as Momojou for short. I've used both names in different chapters, but it's the same school. I'm really sorry that was confusing.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Happy holidays! I can't believe that the next time I post will be in 2015!


	16. Volatile

Chikamatsu and Mori caught up to me after school as I was walking home and insisted on walking me to the station. I tried refusing, but they wouldn't take no as an answer.

"The other guys would be pissed if we shirked our duties," was their explanation and who could argue with that.

Chikamatsu was pretty chatty while Mori was the quieter of the two. To be honest, I wasn't really paying attention to them because I was trying to figure out what we could possibly do as a class for the school festival. The guys had talked about the host club idea and nothing else for the rest of the day, and I was starting to get annoyed.

First of all, the school probably wouldn't even let us  _do_  a host club.

And secondly, as much as I hated it, I was in charge of this whole thing. What was I supposed to do while the guys cozied up to the girls, if girls even actually showed up?

Why did Yankumi have to put me in charge anyway?

"…Kana?"

I was jolted out of my thoughts when Mori said my name.

"Huh?"

"We're at the station."

"Oh...I was thinking about the school festival." I cringed as I said it. It was as if I was putting effort into something I didn't know if I actually cared about.

"The host club is going to be so awesome!" Chikamatsu grinned.

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. "Thanks for walking me here. You guys can leave now."

"It's fine! We can wait until you buy your ticket and go in!"

"Yeah, it's not like we have to rush anywhere."

This is what I feared would happen. How would I explain that their kindness was not doing me any favors?

"I actually have a couple of errands to run before I go…"

"Oh, you should have told us! We'll go with you!" Chikamatsu said pleasantly.

… _seriously_?

"I…um…have to buy some…um…girl things," I said finally.

"Huh?" Chikamatsu said, clearly not getting the hint.

I looked pleadingly at Mori, whose eyes widened.

"Oh…um…we'll be going then," Mori said finally, grabbing Chikamatsu's arm.

"What? Why? I don't get it!"

"Just come on!" Mori hissed at him, dragging him away.

I waited for them to turn the corner, just in case, before turning and quickly fleeing towards the shops that lined the streets south of the station. I wondered if Mori had sisters or a girlfriend that we didn't know about…no matter what the reason, I was glad he understood that I needed to be alone, even if it was a lie.

I quickly made my way through the streets, brushing past elderly people on their daily stroll, mothers running last minute errands with their kids, students heading to cram schools. The crowd dwindled the longer I walked on, but I felt safer as the harbor came closer and closer. The walk home was one of my favorite parts of the day, because until I started living with Shun and the others, it had been years since I had a place that I considered my home.

I turned into a smaller street that had older stores, local haunts that one would only know about if one grew up here or happened to find them while exploring. I ducked into a small bookstore, the familiar smell of old books and green tea hitting me as I entered.

"Ah, Kana," Nomura-san said, looking up from where he sat in the corner.

"Hello," I said as warmly as I could. "I was hoping to use your back exit."

Nomura-san chuckled. "Trying to escape from the boys again, are we? Shunsuke certainly has his hands full."

I grinned, despite how I had been feeling earlier. Nomura-san was the older owner of this small bookstore and was one of the few adults that I trusted. This store was one of my favorite places to come to, not because I loved books, but because Nomura-san let me take refuge here many times when I was avoiding from Shun or the others when they were angry. He was also one of the few people that called Shun by his full name.

It also helped that the back exit of the store led to an alleyway that I could take all the way down to the back of the house. This store had been my escape route many times, but to and away from the house.

"Drop by the café sometime soon," I invited as I headed towards the back of the store.

"I will in the near future," I heard him call after me as I slipped into the alleyway.

A stray cat or two ducked out of the way as I jogged to the house.

The house was empty, as it often was when I got home from school. I threw down my schoolbag onto my bed before changing into my uniform. I glanced at the mirror, pushing some stray hairs out of my face and clipping them to the side.

It was over a month ago that Uchi had dyed my hair, and the color was fading. My hair was still mostly brown, but the hairs that had gone back to black, especially at the roots, were a harsh contrast to the rest, as though I hadn't been thorough with coloring my hair.

The girl that stared back at me in the mirror was not leader material. I knew it, my class knew it. I blew out a frustrated breath before heading downstairs and out to the café.

* * *

The more I thought about the school festival, the more my mood soured. It was apparently written on my face because Shun pulled up a chair to where I sat doing my homework that night.

"You looked super out of it during work today."

I paused, putting my pencil down. "We're doing a school festival which, according to the guys, no one even comes to. But the homeroom teacher put me in charge for whatever reason."

"You're in charge?" Shun asked, eyebrow raised.

"I know, right?" I groaned. "And all the guys want to do is a host club. We're probably going to get vetoed by the administration and we haven't come up with any other ideas."

Shun grinned. "A host club, huh? That doesn't sound like it won't get out of hand."

I sighed. "Exactly, but I don't even know why I'm so worked up about it. No one even cares about this school festival anyway. And if we're allowed to do it, what's so hard about a host club? The guys can just sit there and do nothing, basically."

Shun's expression clouded as I spoke. I furrowed my brows, but I realized that Shun wasn't even looking directly at me. I turned around slowly to see what he was looking at.

Sho stood in the doorway, looking absolutely furious. He had never looked at me like that before. His fists were clenched so hard, his knuckles were white, and I was tempted to move out of his line of sight. I opened my mouth but I didn't even have the words to ask why.

After a few moments of painful silence, Sho wordlessly crossed the room and slammed the door behind him as he left. I winced at the sound.

"You shouldn't have said that," Shun said quietly.

"What?" I asked shakily, still stunned by Sho's fury.

But before he could answer, Chiba walked in.

"Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you, Kana, but Chiba is now going to be working at the café," Shun said.

"Why? What about his job?" I asked immediately.

"None of your business," Chiba snapped.

Shun gave both of us a look. "If you can't get along, then one of you will have to look for another job."

"We'll be fine," Chiba muttered before leaving the room.

"And is that really fine with you?" Shun asked me.

I managed to nod. Working with Chiba? Even if Chiba was civil to me…I wasn't sure I could ever be completely comfortable around him.

"Whatever it is you guys have between you, work it out. Don't harm my business," Shun said, getting up.

"It's nothing," I said, faking a smile. "It'll be fine."

"Good," Shun said. "Oh, and it's best if you leave Sho alone tonight."

"But why? What did I say?" I asked, but Shun shook his head.

"It's not my place to tell you. He'll open up when he's ready. But for tonight, give him space."

But I couldn't. I knew I wouldn't be able to concentrate on anything else.

"Sho?" I said, knocking on his door a little while later. I tried the doorknob and found it locked.

"Go away," he said, voice strained.

"Sho, I'm sorry! Please…" I pleaded.

"You don't even know what you're sorry about," he countered. The door stayed closed.

"…you're mad. I'm sorry," I said, not knowing what else to say. It was true. I didn't know why Sho was mad, but it was even more painful to know that it was because of me. What had I said?

"Kana…I'll talk to you tomorrow. Just leave me alone for tonight, okay?"

I didn't know what to do. I was used to Chiba, Shun, a few of the others on occasion being upset with me, but not Sho. I began to walk towards my room, trying to remember what it was that I had been saying to Shun. Something about host clubs?

"So it's Sho now?" Chiba asked, coming out of the bathroom, having just showered judging by his wet hair and the towel around his neck, not to mention the fact that he was shirtless.

"What are you talking about?" I snapped. Of all times for him to appear…

"I know you guys have a thing," Chiba scoffed, one arm out to stop me from proceeding any further.

"Whatever," I said, crossing my arms. What did Chiba know?

"So he's rejected you for the night?" Chiba said, glancing down the hallway towards Sho's closed door.

"Will you just stop?" I said, clenching my teeth together. I pushed against Chiba's arm, but he slammed my shoulder back with his free hand, trapping me between his body and the wall.

"My door's always open," Chiba said, his nose inches from mine.

"You don't even like me," I whispered, trying to shrink away from his touch.

Unlike Abe, he didn't try to deny it. "I don't need to like you for this. And neither do you. It wouldn't be the first time doing it with someone you don't like."

"Bastard," I hissed, pushing against him, causing him to hit the wall behind him.

But instead of being angry like I thought he would, he simply laughed. "This, this is the real you. Angry, resentful, passionate. The goody two-shoes act makes me sick."

I glared at him. What was he talking about?

He smirked. "Since we're going to be working together now, Shun expects us to be civil."

"That won't be a problem for me," I snapped.

"Really?" he asked with a grin. "Because I kind of like knowing that I get under your skin."

I bit back a response, knowing that a response was exactly what he wanted. Instead, I turned and began to walk back to my room.

Once in my room, I contemplated locking the door but I stopped myself. I didn't usually lock the door, and locking it would mean that Chiba had won, that he had actually managed to irritate me to the point of me barring myself from him. I wouldn't give him that satisfaction.

I crawled into my covers and closed my eyes. Once the thing with Abe was settled, I thought that everything would go back to normal. I hadn't been anticipating this avalanche of new problems.

How are you going to fix this, Kana?

Somehow, in the midst of thoughts about making things right with Sho, working with Chiba (could we really do it without tearing each other apart?), having to constantly be on my toes about hiding the truth about my background, and figuring out what to do about the school festival, I managed to slip into a restless sleep.

* * *

I didn't see Sho, Chiba or Shun as I left the house the next morning. I managed to get to school despite not feeling rested in the least.

I bumped into Sawatari as I passed the teacher's lounge.

"Ah, Nakajima-san, just the person I was looking for. I need to talk to you about the school festival."

He pulled me into the school conference room. He had me sit before he clasped his hands together.

"As you know, students from other schools may be visiting our school on the day of the festival. This includes other high school students, but potentially prospective students as well. And we've made quite a name for ourselves because of our new co-ed program."

I raised my eyebrow at him as he spoke. Currently, I was the only outcome of this so-called program.

"And we want to encourage more young girls like yourself to come to Shirokin," Sawatari continued, "so we were hoping that you spend some time during the festival speaking to some of the female students that come."

"Do I have a choice?" I asked.

"Well of course you have a choice," Sawatari exclaimed, as if offended that I even asked. "It would just be very nice to get an honest, real-life experience of a female student who goes to this school and has experienced the nice things Shirokin has to offer."

…in other words, there was no one else to ask.

"I will consider it," I said with a sigh. I didn't want to have to deal with Sawatari, especially not this morning, if I said yes or no.

"Great!" he said, flashing his toothy grin. "Now off to class."

It should have made me feel better, heading back to 3-D, but it was if I knew that a headache would be waiting for me there.

Of course, the guys were still all riled up about the host club idea when I got there. I slid into my seat and put my head down, only to be jostled by an overenthusiastic Ochi.

"We were thinking about having these activities for our host club!"

"And we have a list of drinks we want to have," Kuma added.

"…Why are you asking me?" I mumbled.

"Because you're the class representative! We need you to get our budget approved from the school to do this!"

Ah. So they were dead set on this idea. I hadn't even cleared it with Yankumi yet…and when she did ask about it, I told her we needed more time.

"Okay!" she had said with an enthusiastic smile. "You're the class representative after all!"

I almost asked her right then and there to pick someone else, but I forced a smile instead. Giving up now would mean that I had failed, and although their enthusiasm for this host club idea was irritating, a part of me didn't want to let my class down.

But the longer I delayed bringing up the host club to Yankumi and the administration, the longer I was delaying their disappointment when they found out we wouldn't be allowed to do it. All day, the guys bugged me about details about the host club. I barely had to speak, as they would constantly argue over each other even as they were telling me their ideas.

I eventually escaped to the nurse's office. I knew this wasn't what a leader did when facing problems, but in the moment, I didn't care.

"I have a headache," I told Kawashima, who gave me some painkillers and told me to rest on the cot. I camped out there during lunch as well, even though the painkillers were already in full effect and my headache gone, not wanting to go back to that chaos and have to deal with school festival stuff. Instead, I lay on the cot, brainstorming ways I would apologize to Sho.

Kawashima made me leave when she found me still there after lunch, sending me off with a bottle of water.

"Where were you?" Noda asked as I entered the classroom just as Ando was about to begin class.

"Kawashima's," I said, pulling out my history textbook and notebook.

"Here," Uchi said, placing a wrapped rice ball on my desk. I looked at him questioningly. "You probably didn't eat lunch."

I took it gratefully, suddenly realizing that I was super hungry.

"Are you okay?" Kuma asked concernedly as I began to eat. The guys' attention all turned to me, much to Ando's discomfort as he tried to begin the lesson.

"Did you faint again?"  
"Did you eat breakfast?"  
"Are you drinking enough water?"

"I'm fine," I insisted, trying to wave their attention off of me.

"Don't worry! Hazama and I will walk you home today!" Shimazu spoke up.

"Yeah," Hazama chimed in. "We'll take care of you! And we can tell you all about our ideas for the host club!"

As he said this, Hazama clasped my shoulder, probably meant to be a reassuring touch. But it was something I wasn't prepared for, and my half-eaten rice ball fell to the ground.

Something in me snapped.

"I don't care!" I shouted, slamming my hands on my desk.

The class became extremely quiet as they all stared at me.

"Nakajima-san," Ando pleaded from the front of the room where he awkwardly stood.

"Sorry," I said finally, pulling my hands into my lap. But if someone mentioned the host club one more time…

"Are you on your period?" Sawada's voice cut through the silence.

I turned and glared at him as some of the guys visibly winced or gasped.

"Shin, you can't ask a girl that," Noda said frantically.

"Then why are you so pissed?" Sawada asked, staring at me. I looked away first.

"Did you have a fight with someone?" Noda asked more gently from the side.

I immediately thought of Sho, then Chiba. "Can we…can we just not talk about it?" I asked, my question coming out more harshly than I intended. I turned to look straight at the board. "Mr. Ando, can you please continue?"

Ando regained some of his composure and began to lecture on the Tokugawa Shogunate. My classmates all shrugged and didn't push me further. Uchi silently picked up the rice ball from the floor and handed me another one. But I knew that they were all exchanging looks with each other when they thought I wouldn't notice, and I could feel Sawada's gaze on me but I refused to turn around.

* * *

The rest of the day, the guys tip-toed around me, as if extremely afraid to upset me. I knew I needed to actually apologize about taking out my anger on them, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I didn't want to have to launch into this entire explanation of what was irritating me and besides, most of it was about things I couldn't tell them about anyway.

At the very end of the last class, my phone rang. Sho.

"Hello?" I said hesitantly. The guys all quieted around me, curious to see who was calling me.

"I'm outside your school," Sho said gruffly without a greeting.

"Now?"

"Yes."

I scrambled to get my stuff as I held my phone to my ear with my shoulder. "I'll come out right now."

The guys crowded around as I struggled to stuff everything into my schoolbag at once.

"Who was that?" Uchi asked.

"Sorry, I have to go," I said, finally managing to close my schoolbag and heading for the stairs.

"What's happening? Is something wrong?" Minami called after me.

I didn't stop to answer his question as I ran down the hallway.

"No running in the hallway!" Washizu shouted after me, but I didn't stop. I was more scared of facing why Sho having come to pick me up at school than getting reprimanded for running in the hallway, of all things.

I threw down my regular shoes before stuffing my school shoes in the shoe box. I nearly fell over trying to pull on my shoes but I somehow managed to get them on. I realized my hands were shaking so I took a couple of deep breaths before stepping outside.

Sho stood at the entrance of the school, leaning against the brick wall just outside the gate. He was wearing his favorite navy blue button down shirt, so he stood out among the crowd of black school uniforms. Schoolmates cast his curious glances, but his glares made them jolt and hurry past him.

"Sho?" I said hesitantly as I approached him. My carefully rehearsed apology had completely vanished from my mind and I frantically sought to find it.

He straightened up. "Oh. You're here. Let's go."

"Where are we going?" I asked, but I found myself speaking to his back, as he was already on the move.

"Don't worry about it. Just follow me."

I couldn't detect his emotional state through his tone. Was he still angry?

"Seriously?" he asked, whirling around when he realized I wasn't following him. "Do I have to hold your hand or something?"

"Are you still mad at me?" I asked.

"Are you not going to come with me unless I answer the question?"

I nodded, despite myself.

He paused for a moment, as if thinking about it. "Fine. No, I'm not mad at you anymore. Happy?"

Relief flooded me and a grin spread across my face. "Would you really hold my hand?"

He rolled his eyes before holding out his hand.

I was pleasantly surprised and embarrassed all at once.

"I'm not going to hold your hand! What if someone sees?" I exclaimed.

"Brat," he growled, grabbing my arm and dragging me along. "Hurry up. We're going to be late."

"To where?" I asked, but he wouldn't tell me.

To my surprise, we arrived at the station and Sho handed me a train ticket.

"We're going to Ikebukuro?" I asked, looking at the ticket. He nodded.

Ikebukuro was where the restaurant Sho worked at was. I wondered why he was taking me along to his job. But Sho was silent throughout the train ride, and I didn't want to upset him again by asking. It seemed true that he wasn't angry at me anymore, but he seemed incredibly tense. I could only guess at what was bothering him so much.

* * *

When we arrived at the station, Sho pulled me through the crowds that were beginning to form. Ikebukuro was a popular hangout place, especially at night. It would only get more and more crowded as the day went on.

Sho stopped in front of the public restroom inside the station and handed me the brown bag he had been carrying with him.

"Go change," was all he said.

I wasn't about to argue. Once inside the bathroom, I looked inside the bag only to find clothing that I owned inside. I took off my school uniform and put on the white lace tank top and pale pink skirt before pulling on the navy blazer. I would have never paired these items together, since the outcome was so incredibly girly, but Sho clearly knew what he was doing. I breathed a sigh of relief as I found black tights at the bottom of the bag. At least Sho remembered that I wouldn't wear skirts without covering my legs.

"Why am I wearing this?" I asked once I stepped out of the bathroom.

"Your school uniform is no good here," was all I got in reply, whatever that meant.

When we walked past Sho's restaurant, I was surprised. I was so sure that this was where he had planned on taking me.

But he kept walking and I struggled to keep up because he was walking so fast. We turned a few corners, passing by several hotels. I began to notice more guys walking around, coming in and out of the buildings around us.

"Do you remember when you started your first job?" Sho asked, finally breaking the silence.

"Yeah?" I replied, unsure of where this was going. "It was Shun's café, not too long after I moved in. Wasn't it the same for you?"

Sho smiled a little and shook his head, surprising me.

"But…you said you dropped out of college and…Shun found you and asked you to work for him…no?"

"…I left some things out of that story…" Sho said, finally coming to a stop. "This was where I first found a job."

I stood beside him and looked up at the sign.

A host club.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Quick thing I forgot to mention last chapter - Tochigi (where Kana's grandparents live) is two prefectures (kind of like really small states) above Tokyo. So it's relatively not that far away, but it's definitely not close either.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading and commenting! I was so surprised to get comments about when I was going to post next, and although it took me a while (almost a month!), it definitely encouraged me to keep working on writing the next chapter. I'll do my best so that the next update isn't too far behind!
> 
> Kana's thoughts about leadership and responsibility, among other things, are kind of all over the place right now, so let me know if that's confusing or doesn't make sense (or if anything doesn't make sense!) I definitely still figuring out the balance between writing about her home and school life (I find that each chapter tilts one way or the other), so constructive criticism on this or anything else is much appreciated!
> 
> Super grateful for you all! I hope you are having a fantastic beginning of the year!
> 
> Reisa


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